Aldebaran Vol. 17, Issue 1 - Roger Williams University

Aldebaran

Volume 17 | Issue 1 Article 1

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Aldebaran Vol. 17, Issue 1

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Published by DOCS@RWU, 1988

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Aldebaran, Vol. 17, Iss. 1 [1988], Art. 1

http://docs.rwu.edu/aldebaran/vol17/iss1/1

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EDITORS:

Michael Sisco Jodi Kehn Lynne Ziegert

CONTRIBUTING ARTIST:

Thomas Feeney

TITLE ARTIST:

Donald Wright

Address all correspondence to:

Aldebaran Roger Williams College Bristol, Rhode Island

02809

Aldebaran is published by students of the Creative Writing Program at Roger Williams College twice a year, (or annually) in May and December. Submissions are welcome from anyone anywhere, but must fall within deadlines. Deadlines are April I and November 1. Manuscripts arriving between April 2 and September 1, or between November 2 and February I will be returned unread.

Please send no more than five poems at one time. No fiction over 3,000 words can be considered for publication.

(copyright 1988) Volume 17, Number 1 May 1988

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CONTENTS

Fiction

Frank Ananicz Is That All There Is? 8

Karen Gibson The Old Man 35

Phillip Hemenway The Empire oj Might The Oracle oj Delphi

42 51

Murray Lerner An Accident 70

D.S. Moir Heart Attack 82

Poetry

Father Benedict Auer No Gloves 13

Charles Bigelow Buried in Caged

a Michigan Winter 14 15

6



David Blaisdell The Brown-Eyed Path 16

Lorene Vorback Bossong Ashes of Tears 18

Annette Bostrom Obsequy for the lee Fisherman 19

Caprice Brown Pew 46, St. Elizabeth's Cathedral 23

Mary Ann Campbell The Beginning of the Fall 25

Robert Darling The Burning Flute 26

Robert DeYoung After "Girl Seated by the Sea"

Robert Henri, 1893 Oil on canvas, 17 3/4" X 23 3/4"

Grand Central Shuttle

28

29

Becky Ericson Colorado Sailing From the Center Gettysburg

31 32 33

David Gerbino Midnight 34

Fritz Hamilton Blind Children 40

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Mary Ann Henn Photographs 61 Talk Time 61

E. Ward Herlands Bonding 62

N.M Hoffman October 63 October in Deep Snow 64

Joan Payne Kincaid The Big Time 6S Birthday 65 Another Celebration 67 Sonatinas 68 Spring 68 Party on a Winter Night 69

Thomas McCraw The Melodies of Song 80 Rhythm Abstractions 80 To Misfortune 81

B.Z. Niditch 1942 (Czelslaw Milosz) 105

William Nunez Losing My... 107

Tony Pena Boiling Blood 106

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Goodbye Kiss

David A. Pa ulk The Big Game

Carylon Ann Poole Childhood in Chicago

S.L. Rich Opera jor a Moonless Path

Jeff Swan Double Vision Tanka

James H. Seward The Anniversary

W. Gregory Stewart Wake Up Time jor Poetry

Nick R. Zemaiduk Alchemy Cabin Fever

106

108

111

113

114 114

115

116 117

118 119

9



Frank Ananicz

IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

Caspar owned a tavern on Long Island. And for twenty years he served his customers and listened to their troubles and never touched a drop. But tonight was different. Tonight he served himself, too. And he told his customers his troubles. He was telling them to Mrs. Kopper, the woman who lived across the street. "I'm seriously thinking of ending it all tonight...1t When he finished, he opened the walnut drawer next to the cash register and gazed inside it.

Mrs. Kopper leaned foward and looked in the drawer and sat back. "You bought that gun for protection against robbery, nothing else."

Up until a year ago, Caspar was a hard worker and a good businessman. He attdbuted his success to his firm policy of no trust, no drinks on the house, no exceptions. And part of his success was knf)wing how to say no his customers and still keep them as customers. The only person he couldn't say no to was his wife Lola. So all their twentyfive years of married life, whatever Lola wanted, Lola got, just like the song. He didn't mind indulging her. He loved her and could afford it. They h~d a luxurious four bedroom house, a successful business and plenty of money in the bank. They had planned to retire to Florida after their three daughters married.

When the time came last year, Lola changed her mind. "I just can't leave this beautiful house and all its memories. Besides, we're only fifty. We're too young to retire."

Time passed and her interest turned to keeping up with the Joneses. Then outdoing them. First she concentrated on their street, then the streets in the area, then the entire neighborhood. She had to have the most, the biggest, the best--everything. Dormers, bedrooms and bathrooms were added to the house. It was becoming a mansion. And while it was, Caspar was dreaming of getting out of the cold weather and the rat raceand the Joneses thing and moving to Florida. His dreams frustrated, depression set in and Caspar took to drink. The more Lola spent the more Caspar drank. In time,

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Ananicz

drink softened Caspar's will and he started a trust book and drinks on the house. He let his help drink, too. His trust book grew and his help tapped the till. Lola's spending increased and Caspar's profits decreased. Before long every cent they had in the bank was used to keep the business going. Loans and debts followed. Then liens. Lola blamed it on Caspar's drinking and Caspar blamed it on Lola's spending. Tonight Lola packed her things and said to Caspar, "I'm leaving you. I'm getting a divorce."

It was a little after midnight when Mrs. Kopper walked into Caspar's tavern. It was snowing out and she brushed some snow from her shoulders at the entrance. Then she walked over to the bar. Mrs. Kopper always stopped in at this hour on her way home from the factory where she worked on the night shift.

A record was spinning in the juke box and Peggy Lee's voice was singing, "Is that all there is? .."

Mrs. Kopper sat on a stool at the center of the bar and Caspar brought her a beer. After pouring one for himself he told her his troubles and suicide intentions.

"Things will look better in the morning." Caspar snorted. "I've told that to my customers so often I

know how little that means." "Everyone has troubles." "Who'd know better than a bartender." Caspar took a

swallow of his beer. "I probably know every problem people have in Elmont. The ones who couldn't solve them became my best customers."

"And you think suicide is the solution, hUh?" Caspar nodded. "I ain't gonna end up like some of my

customers." He motioned his head to the town drunk sitting at the end of the bar, staring out the window. "Ever since Willie's wife and son were killed in that auto accident of his, he's been cryin' in his beer. That accident happended five years ago." Caspar motioned his head to the town character sitting near Willie. "Raincoat Raymond will never solve his problem either. Every time he gets serious with a girl his mother has some kind of an attack. She's had 'em for ten years now and she's still gain' strong. But look

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Ananicz

what it's done to him? He's become so frustrated he can't hold a job. All he's capable of is odd jobs, And when he ain't doin' that, he's either rummaging through everyone's garbage or pickin' butts up off the street." Caspar took another swallow of his beer and motioned his head again at Raymond. "He wears the same raincoat and sneakers without socks year in and year out."

Mrs. Kopper looked at Raymond's tattered gray raincoat. Then her blue eyes lowered to view his dirty white sneakers, worn at the toes. Raymond's fingers fumbled for a large butt inside his cigar box on the bar.

Caspar lit a cigarette and slid his package of Winstons on the bar over to Raymond. "Present for ya, Ray."

Raymond smiled at Caspar. "Gee, thanks. You're all right in my book."

Caspar opened his cash register and took out a quarter and slid it to the other end of the bar to the town whore. "Hey, Minnie, keep playin' that same record."

Wearing a bright red mini-dress and black boots, Minnie picked up the quarter and went over to the juke box.

Caspar's gray eyes squinted at Mrs. Kopper. "Ya think Minnie solved her problems? Because the guy she was engaged to married another girl she turned to all the guys."

With her blonde wig, false eyelashes and false teeth, Minnie wiggled a bit with each selection press on the juke box.

As they watched her, Caspar said to Mrs. Kopper, "What a customer sees ain't what he gets,"

Mrs. Kopper finished her beer. "Let me buy you a beer, Caspar."

"No, thanks." Caspar put his cigarette out and finished his beer. "Next one's on me."

While Caspar refilled the glasses, Minnie sang along with Peggy Lee, "If that's all there is, my friend..."

Glasses refilled, Caspar put them on the bar, saying,"That's all there is for me."

"Don't talk like that." "We're born. We work. We marry, divorce and die. Is that

all there is to life?"

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Ananicz

"People do start over." "Too late for me." "It's never too late." Mrs. Kopper looked out of the glass

front and saw Mrs. Ridge looking in. "That sweet old lady seems to be looking for someone in here. I know her husband's dead and--"

"She only comes in here when it's crowded. Plenty of change on the bar then. She's got the fastest hand in Long Island."

"Why haven't you warned your customers?" "If I exposed all my customers' secrets I'd have been out

of business years ago." Caspar told her some of those secrets. "I wouldn't be tellin' you all this if--"

"Don't talk like that." Music ended, Caspar took another quarter from out of his

register and slid it over to Minnie. "Keep playin' that same one." Later, Caspar began singing with Peggy Lee, "Let's break out the booze and have a ball." He stopped singing and exclaimed,"Yeah, let's break out the booze and have a ball." He took two bottles of whiskey off the shelf. "Whi~key anyone?" It's on the house."

Everyone cheered, whistled or clapped their hands. Caspar put shot glasses in front of everyone and filled

them. And he refilled them over and over again. When the music ended, he took a fistful of quarters from out of his cash register and handed them to Minnie. " All for the same song, honey."

By the time the music ended, everyone was burping, belching, singing and crying.

Mrs. Kopper almost fell to the floor when she got off her stool to leave. As she'~tumbled into bed, she slurred to her husband, "Lola is divorcing Caspar ... And he's losing his business." h

"That's too bad. Were you helping him drown his sorrows?" "Yeah. He said he's gonna kill himself." "That was the liquor talking. He'll feel better in the

morning." "That's what I told him, but--" "Go to sleep."

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Ananicz

Mrs. Kopper woke at noon. She heard a commotion outside and looked out her front window. She saw an ambulance, three police cars and a crowd in front of Caspar's tavern. She quickly dressed and hurried over to the crowd. Seeing Raincoat Raymond, she went over to him. "What happened?"

. "Caspar shot himself. He's dead." As they watched the medics carry Caspar's body on a

stretcher over to the ambulance, she said, "He said he was going to do it."

"I heard him." "I really didn't believe him." "Neither did the rest of us." Raymond sighed. "Strange." "What?" "They broke up because he wanted to retire to Florida and

she didn't." "So?" "It's strange that Lola is going to live with her parents." "Why?" "Didn't you know?" "What?" "Her parents moved to Florida last month."

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Father Benedict Auer

NO GLOVES

"Zen must be seized with bare hands. with no gloves on."

T.Z. Suzuki

I can't sit back, eyes naveled inward, watching my life slip into dreams. No, I can't, or rather won't, daymare my walking, sleepwalk through nights, rather I'll clap one-handed, a mute protest against deaf confreres. My mouth forms words, voicelessly screaming, an anthem to freedom, a song to myself. I'm removing my gloves to grasp better a world too beautiful not to hold.

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Charles Bigelow

BURIED IN A MICHIGAN WINTER

happiness rode back to Texas last summer, tucked securely in her suitcase. your gray gaze searched the southern horizon. your smile was stilted as maple twigs in the snow. that boisterous laugh was buried in a Michigan winter. an appetite swallowed whole, as days and nights wandered by like silt drifting from a chimney. soiling the white snow.

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Bigelow

CAGED

dressed in musty antiques, the ancient room wandered through time; humid stench of age trapped within its walls.

a kitten used to prowling. I was trapped in this cage on grandmother's third floor.

time for bed and nothing to wear, my naked, china body shivered at the disgrace of it all.

enraged, I refused your old Marine shorts, but cried myself to sleep in the lamp's yellow glow; its shadows forever walking on the walls.

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David St. Lawrence Blaisdell

THE BROWN EYED PATH

At an early age my eyes became dappled gold, gold in the center where everybody liked it. I became an emblem of summer sun and its splashful reminder of heavenly bestowal; an emblem of golden autumn with its silver streams furrowing the face of age; an emblem of spring jumping out of the emerald soil to chuckle like a child over his Easter birth.

Indeed I was made oblivious to snow by the molten praise of the townspeople. I was always and everywhere to them in the temperate zone. I was their tropical wonder; when the tropics grew thin they fattened me up like a native golden bear.

They thought of me when they looked at the sun, and when the sun circled down the stars and moon tightened in their rut.

They replaced their stellar destinies with me, placing me in a coronary vein of importance. They tightened their grip of me each Sunday by pounding their breasts to the beat of my blood.

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Blaisdell

All sacrifices they had adored became cruel as if they found me in a loosing pricethe salvation of worldliness. My golden eyes gleamed with the promise of easy significance, a winter destined to snowball the era of the cross.

They did not think it inevitable that the special leaf on the maple hits the ground and rests above the runnels of mortality's private power. They saw to it that they were prepared for the invincible July as if the sun had no need to travel under into its personal estivation. They were surprised one day. I think All Soul's, when I walked through the center of town with my eyes shut to the world and the Agnus Dei in my arms. They asked to see my eyes, they begged to, and when I showed them they winced. Winter had come my way at last and retracked me and my brothers along a brown-eyed path.

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Lorene Vorback Bossong

ASHES OF TEARS

she cries drowned in disillusionment in the flickering flame of the candle the image of the entwined couple smothers in affection her eyes close as those phony words loved nursed on now laugh mockingly in her ears

clutching the sheet with her teeth, she ceases the trembling of lips once kissed

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Annette Bostrom

OBSEQUY FOR THE ICE FISHERMAN

Ice creaks like old wood on the

pond. Snow flakes don't drift down, but hit

the ice like crushed white marbles and scrape

across the frozen floor. Shot by thumbflicks

of wind, hard shards whirl through the cracks

in the old man's bobhouse in the middle of the

pond and grip the stiff hairs on his face.

Back braced against the cold, old

memories come to thaw the edges of his numbed

mind like spring will come to penetrate

the pond's perfect seal.

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Bostrom

His still eyes watch the red-flagged

tip-up, but see beneath the signal

of his catch, past the sluggish black bass

tugging his line to a time before

the ice: to high, dry hills of eye

burning yellows and green pastures licked flat

by broad tongues of hot wind, to stretches-out

days and shrunken nights; money for a

good smoke or a bad woman

whenever he wanted, and cheap rye

more often than not. All, long sunk

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Bostrom

out of reach, preserved at the

bottom of the pond: a plump woman, comfortable

in aprons and cotton day wraps, smelling

of cinnamoned sun tea and sour lemons; the outline

of a tow-headed child in a meadow with mud pies-

himself or of himself, positive identification

lost in a crease in his mind, or in the last

flash of the ice fish on his forgotten

line. The bobhouse shudders once, in a wall of wind,

the fisherman's blood slows, stops, pools

cold in his veins. The ice groans.

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Caprice Brown

PEW 46, ST. ELIZABETH'S CATHEDRAL

When I was little, there was this song my friends teased me and my boyfriend with. It used to make me embarrassed, but I'd laugh anyway 'cause it was fun. Whenever they'd see me ~nd T -boy talking, they's start:

"Troba and T-boy sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage!!"

I ain't Ii ttIe no more and I don't even know where T-boy is. I do know that life don't have to go in that innocent a order. I'm eighteen and a half and I been carrying a baby in me for most three months. I done finally decided what I want to do about it-not what I want to do, but what I gotta do.

I call my baby Dani to myself cause I like the names Daniel and Danielle. I ain't told Dani's papa, Nathan James, yet and I ain't gonna. I'm not having my baby. I never believed in abortion, cause that's murder, but I never pictured me in this predicament neither. Lots of folkS would say this is a selfish decision, but it ain't. I want Dani--I love Dani, but to keep this child would be selfish. Dani would never live no good life cause I couldn't do her right. Ma would be so hurt. She already raised seven children and she still got two besides me. She couldn't help me and besides, Ma always said not to let the devil make me do what I did. She says it's wrong. My granny would be tore up by the pain. She thinks I'm a perfect lady and I make her proud. Nathan James would be gone before the first bill came in the mail. I figure I could have my precious Dani, and all these people will suffer. If I have an operation. I just hurt me.

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Brown

That's why I say it's selfish to have Dani. I'm glad Ma always said put money away for a rainy day. Tomorrow'll be worse than a 40-day storm and I'll need every bit of my savings to pay the clinic.

God, don't make nobody else wear shoes like mine. I'm so sorry, but I gotta do this. Please help me get through this trial. And God, keep Dani close to you--I know she's a good baby, even though she ain't never gonna sing. AMEN.

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Mary Ann Campbell

THE BEGINNING OF FALL

September nags me from my summer stupor. The heat stroke breaks with the breeze that billows through my windows, over the sweat-soggy sheets I haven't slept under since June. This is mania, lunacy. I feel burdened by September's bully blows of school bus exhaust, calmed by her sweet breath of whispering leaves that sends shivers of chill mornings over me, nudges me outdoors with its September faith that even I can be awakened.

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Robert Darling

THE BURNING FLUTE

The bamboo flute has split, A victim of the damp and cold,

Before she'd mastered it. Cracked lengthwise near the finger holes,

It was consigned to fire: The fingers of the flame curled round

As if the blaze aspired To register in fluted sound

Its own protest against The fact of its fragility,

To sound in orange lament The ghost of conquered, fallen trees.

I watched the flames consume This flute, this virgin instrument,

Half hoped to hear a tune Before its leaping form was spent

As if what's shaped for sound Would not be stilled, not mutely burn,

That measure would be found Before blank shapelessness returned.

The finger holes grew tongues That licked the black, surrounding air

Like mouths that left unsung The very song that brought them there

To fade within the fire Which burns from all but memory

The singers in the choir Who sang in forbidden key.

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Darling

Though Christian martyrs burned Ones likes to think of them transposed,

Pure souls to God returned, Their spirits clad in flaming clothes.

But here this bamboo stick Can make no equal claim to share

The fate of heretics. Now purged in brilliant, fatal air

It bids its hissed farewell In one last consummating flash-

The physics that compel Compel both flute and saint to ash.

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Robert DeYoung

After "GIRL SEATED BY THE SEA" Robert Henri, 1893 Oil on canvas, 17 3/4" X 23 3/4".

The girl sea ted by the shore

amid the last grasses land extends

sees a sailboat cutting the woven blue.

She is longing across such distance

dressed as she is to be beautiful,

to cross space, to find what

riding in a sailboat might mean

to one who is locked on land

so tightly she cannot undo

her dress and cool

in the same breeze that pushes

boat and sails across a far horizon,

reaching as it will some point

to make some point about the sun

the sky the sea

and about being seated by the shore

as a sailboat scuds out of the picture

cuts into deeper and deeper blue.

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DeYoung

GRAND CENTRAL SHUTTLE

On the platform a woman is suffering a seizure not far from the third rail, perhaps the distance of a shoe kicked off after a night out

Her shaking and trembling forms a circle of people a parapet where she is beseiged

The Curious stroll around her like zoological gardens visitors trying to see three sides of the tamed giraffe

The woman slides more deeply into herself She sits down saying something wordlessly groaning quietly through froth her head like quickly poured beer

When she falls prone on the concrete the moving people stop and watch the head disappear

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DeYoung

Then, when they see her face again, they seek the image of eternity on one who has walked through hell

A man advances to help

The little crowd gets on its shuttle; I join them We don't know what will happen to her But now and then one of us will describe her faces to someone who was not there and not mention loneliness like hers

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Becky Ericson

COLORADO SAILING

Sometimes when the chinook comes billowing the house feels like it will break its moorings and go scudding off toward Kansas. Then I secure the dishes and fasten the doors, pull in the clothes soaring on the line, and we go skimming off. Past harboured farmhouses we run before the wind. . Prairie grass hisses in our wake as we slip by cows bobbing like strange sea birds riding waves. All day we tack before the wind until Pike's Peak sets with the sun and fields are a dark ocean rippled by wind. Turning before the wind all night we anchor at sunrise between the spruce tree and the lilac--becalmed again.

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Ericson

FROM THE CENTER

This bread still warm, soup rich and thick in an earthen bowl, heart of my mother steaming on the table, the sweet lingering smell of her kitchen after baking. Here in the center of the world we are, sisters and brother drinking deeply of this house, this room, the hours of our mother's life poured out for us. There is nothing in all the world for us anywhere but here. And yet we will go, one by one, to other kitchens, other meals. Leaving our parents to grow old without us, leaving the fragrant wholesome center of childhood to grow cold without us.

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Ericson

GETTYSBURG

Dappled deer walk shyly through the forest before the leveled gun of a soldier, No shots splits their velvet sides.

Silence and the deer walk on. Hollowed bronze infantry guard the woods reviewing and remaking battle lines a choreography of attack and counter attack

silent ballet of remembering.

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David Gerbino

MIDNIGHT

if that pane shudders just once more if that window would only break,

finally shatter... and let in the wind

let in reality......

'cos I don't believe in God, or gods...

but the devil has me

by the ankles at the very top of the staircase...

if only the wind could gust and the window finally bust and the glass

would fly fly straight

straight into the devil's eyes straight...

she might let go must let go

34 36



Karen Gibson

THE OLD MAN

I got my first check today. It's taken them long enough to send it out. I must be over a month since that day I went in for my interview. I still remember sitting there in the waiting room and trying not to mind the cigarette smoke curling around my head. I was staring straight ahead, acting as if I was used to being in places like that. As if it didn't bother me at all.

I couldn't understand why there were so many young people there. I saw only one elderly couple. They were sitting over by the receptionist's desk. I watched them only for a while; sitting side by side, kind of away from everyone else. I began to wonder if it would have been different for me if my wife were still alive.

All this time I just wanted to get up and leave. I was afraid to though, because I knew my daughter would be over that night to ask me how it had gone, and I would be embarrassed to tell her that I had chickened out at the last minute.

It was her idea for me to go there. At least, she was the first to suggest it; sort of hesitantly at first, then with more confidence once she saw that I wasn't too upset by the idea. And after that, whenever she came to visit, she would ask me if I had thought about it anymore, Or if I had done anything about it, until I began to feel that I had to do something just to make her stop bothering me.

I know why she suggested it too. It's because she doesn't want me to go live with them. Now the last thing I want to do is to go and live with my daughter and her family. But it still makes me angry. Just the idea that she would want her own father to go on welfare rather than have me living with her.

I could just see her mind working those first few weeks when I started talking about running short on money. She sat

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Gibson

there on the couch in my living room. Her face was all red and sweaty from the exertion of carrying her weight up the three flights of stairs. She knew she should ask me to move in with them. But then she started thinking about their well ordered little house; with her appliances which could be broken, and her friends who stopped by during the day; and the way I could be a little absent minded lately, talking to myself sometimes, and she just couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

Instead, she would push the hair back away from her face, and wrinkle her brow as if she was trying to think up some alternatives. When all the time, she was only thinking of one thing.

Well, she doesn't have to worry about it because there's no way that I'll ever go live with them. And I probably would ha ve gotten around to doing it sooner or later myself. It's just that without her pushing me, I would have put it off for alot longer. If this was the only way I could keep living on my own for a while, then I decided I would forget about my pride. It would be worth it in the end if I didn't have to go and live with my children.

After a while they called my name and I went off down the hall, trying to find this room 105 that the woman at the front desk had told me to go to. I found the right room without too much trouble, but when I got inside, there were about seven or eight desks in there and I didn't know which one to go to.

"Mr. Walters?" She called to me across the room, practically yelling to be heard over the clicking of the typewriters. "Over here please."

I could tell she was in a hurry to get it over with. She was a good forty five minutes behind with her interviews. knew that much, because they had been that long in calling me. Maybe they were short on people to work there that day.

I

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Gibson

Someone was sick, or maybe they didn't want to hire an extra person even though they needed to. Maybe it had just been a bad day. Anyway, I could imagine her trying to figure out how to get rid of me as soon as possible.

You begin to pick on these things when you get to be my age. I can almost see what people are thinking sometimes. And I'll tell you, it's usually not anything good that you see either.

I began wondering if she maybe knew my story somehow without even asking. If she had taken one look at me and the way I acted as I walked through the door and sat down next to her desk, and said to herself, "I know why this ('!Ie is here."

"I have one like him come in at least once a week now. This man worked nearly all his life, and although he was never very wealthy, he took care of his family, buying them everything they needed and more. Now his wife is dead, his children are grown and the company has retired him. He never saved much money, and the pension they give him isn't enough to live off. So, he made up his mind to apply for welfare. I just hope he has the forms filled out so we can get this over with as soon as possible."

"Did you bring in the papers we sent you, Mr. Walters?" I reached over and set them on her desk. She pullerl them over to the area in front of her and started reading. I remembered how I had sat at the kitchen table, slowly going over each Question, and wondering to myself if I wculd ever be able to go through with it. But I didn't have G1Uch choice really. So the next morning, I just sat down and wr;)te an answer to each Question as Quickly as I could. Then I put the papers away on top of the refrigerator until it was time for the appointment.

"Do you have two positive forms of identification, Mr. Walters?" •

"So you get $175 from your pension, and another $150 from

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Gibson

Social Security?" "Yes, but that barely pays my living expenses, you see, let

alone the food and doctor bills when I have them." "And you live alone?" "Yes. My wife is dead. We sold our house a few years

back. I just rent an apartment now, since I'm on my own." "Do you have any children or other relatives you could live

with?" I hesitated for a moment and she must have known that she hit on something, because she asked me again. "Couldn't you live with one of your children, Mr. Walters?"

"No...the only one that lives around here is my daughter...and she doesn't have the room for me at their place." I hated myself as soon as I said it. But I hated her more; for making me lie, and for giving me one more thing to feel guilty about when it seemed like I had a whole life· time of guilt as it was. And it seemed like she knew all along I was lying too. I could see her considering for a few minutes whether or not to pursue the matter. It would take time to keep asking me questions about it, and after all, this wouldn't be the last time she'd see me. I would have to come back for follow·up interviews every few weeks. and she could always bring up the subject again when there was more time.

"Alright, Mr. Walters. We will begin processing your case. You should be hearing from us in a couple of weeks. But it may take some time, so please be patient. If there are any problems, we'll let you know. Have a nice day. Mr. Walters."

So it looked like they were going to give me a few more months at least, to live on my own. I guess I was sort of relieved that it was all over with. But I remember feeling pretty sad too. Maybe because I sensed that it was only a conditional reprieve. I felt somehow less sure of myself then when I went in. That's a feeling I've had alot since then; as if my options are slowly being whittled away from

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me. As I walked out onto the street, I started thinking about

my daughter. She would be over that night to ask me about the interview. I could imagine the way she would come up the stairs; out of breath from exertion, and smoking a cigarette.

She would ask me how it had gone, and I would reply that it had gone as well as you can expect. Then she would start telling me about some new gadget they had bought for their house. Or about one of those soap operas she watches on television.

To think that we spent all that money on her education, and she has nothing to do but talk about that kind of nonsense. Maybe I should have saved that money for myself instead of putting them through school. Either that, or the money from the swing set. Or the extra television. Maybe things would have been different. Maybe we would at least be able to communicate then. I could tell her how it feels to be old and maybe she could tell me why she wants to smoke herself to death.

I've never been the kind of man to think about these things too much. I mean, I don't ever look back and wonder if there might have been a different way of doing things. I just did what everybody else was doing. And I guess it's a little late to start thinking about it now. Anyway, I got my first check today. I guess I might as well go out and spend it.

39 41



Fritz Hamilton

BLIND CHILDREN

playing at Ft Mason with

a beeping ball with beeper in it

teacher throwing the ball for the

boys to follow with their ears & thus retrieve it

racing happily over the field (no

less content than other boys who

see )

& here I lie with

all my senses in the grass observing this with

the dandelion & the clover as

the sun warms me over the Marina as

the kites & sea birds fJy overhead &

the joggers pant before me & to think (poor

me) I barely have a dime to

feed myself but (watching

the blind boys play) I am suddenly aware

we all have everything

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\ . "\ '. ~

41 43



Phillip Hemenway

THE EMPIRE OF MIGHT

Mr. Leland Conroy had a combination store and gas station over the hill from our house long before quick-stop food and gas enterprises mushroomed on the landscape. Conroy's market sat on 10th Street just a few blocks from Tehama School, where Hos and I started our educations. Hos was older than I, and it was at his insistence that we began our visits down the hill to Conroy·s. There was an element of adventure to these junkets beca use the market was in the opposite direction I was supposed to take on my trip home after school.

The store was a kind of marvel, a perfect balance between essential and non-essential items. Two old Texaco gas pumps stood in front of the store, partially covered by a sort of porte~cochere that allowed people to pump gas out of the rain. The pumps were the old style, with ten gallon glass jars at the top which had to be filled by action of the hand pump. Inside the store was a strange array of dairy products, soft drinks, bread, crackers, cookies, soaps and motor oils. And there was what Mr. Conroy called the sweet shelf, where he kept a variety of commercially made pies and cakes of the lunch box stuffing variety. This is what attracted Hos and me to his place. I craved cherry pies and Hos loved the berry. We would bang in the screen door of the place, scuff across the wooden floor caked back with dirt and motor oil tracked in from outside, make our selections and sit on the cases of Havoline oil stacked near the back. Sometimes we shared a quart of milk when we had the money. Dinner lay at the opposite end of a broad expanse of time.

Mr. Conroy himself was an attraction, too. He was a large, burly man, but he had a voice pitched incongruously high in relation to his size. People sometimes made fun of this, but always behind his back. In the corner of the store at the end of the old counter, he sat behind the cash register in an

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old wicker chair. On the wall behind him was a large bookshelf stuffed with books of all shapes and sizes. He was usually reading when we walked in, but he would put his book down, greet us with a snappy salute and start talking.

He could talk, and what he talked most about was fighting. Mr. Leland Conroy was a veteran. There was a sign on the wall behind the counter, hand-lettered, that read VETERAN. He was proud of this fact, but what Hos and I didn't know was that Mr. Conroy was a veteran of the Spanish Civil War, not any of the ones I was taught to venerate. When I let it slip one afternoon that I had been to Conroy's Market, my grandfather, who had stopped in to see us, turned bright red and sputtered, "You stay out of his place. He's a communist. And a draft-dodger."

"He's a veteran," I protested. "That sign doesn't mean a damn thing. He fought in that

communist war in Spain, but he refused to fight for his country. Stay out of there or I'll kick your butt." He made a good natured swipe at me with his foot, but he was serious. "Hell's bells, I don't even know how he stays in business. He lets everybody's uncle charge there and no one pays him." He shook his head and walked out the door. My mother shrugged and told me Conroy's store was too far away from our house. That was the extent of her pronouncement.

I kept going, with and without Hos, drawn by the pies and the conversations with Mr. Conroy. Actually. they were lectures. As I established myself as a regular, he would often preface his presentation with the question, "What did you study in school today?" No matter what I said he would launch into a dissertation on the state of the world, past and present, and I got a history lesson unlike the ones that emerged from the state-approved books. He seemed to think everything had gone wrong when Franco won, and he blamed EI Caudillo for most of the world's ills.

I didn't understand symbolism, not yet, I did work up the courage to ask him, point-blank, if he

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was a real communist. He laughed uproariously, cursed the stupidity of humankind and then said softly, "No. I bet nobody in this town knows what I am."

"They say you're a communist." "They're wrong. Here, I'll write down what I am and you

can read about it if you want. No use trying to explain." He tore off a piece of butcher paper used to wrap lunch meat and printed the words, SYNDICO-A NA RCHIST, in pencil on it. He was right. I had no idea what it meant.

We continued talking regularly, and in the spring, we had baseball and politics. "I finished with guns long ago, boys," he said, pulling a Louisville slugger from under the counter. "This is the weapon for me. You don't have to grease it, and you don't have to worry about the Fascist sons-a-bitches seeing the glint of your bayonet in the sun. No bullets, no misfires. Come over here," he said, brandishing the bat at Hos, "Come over here and I'll warp your melon for you." Then he laughed and put it back in its place.

I soon found out that World War II was Roosevelt's war, the rich man's war, that Pearl Harbor was planned by both sides, that Hitler and Mussolini could have been stopped in Spain, if the Luftwaffe hadn't been allowed to practice there.

It went on, and everything came back to his war. He proved it all for Hos and me, too. He hiked up his shirt and showed us the gathering of skin, a corrugated scar about five inches long just parallel to his belt line. Then, a similar one but smaller, on his calf. "Fascist bullet wounds," he told us proudly. "Only good thing about 'em is they kept Patton and Eisenhower away from me." That set him off again.

I had never met a man of such passion. Hos and I sometimes felt like laughing when we listened, particularly when we didn't understand, but we didn't dare. Mr. Conroy was a serious man. Even Mr. Hoskovec would give him that much, but his being Polish and anti-Russia prevented him from saying much else. Besides, the Hoskovec family had a charge at

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Conroy's Market. "Jery," Mrs. Hoskovec would say to her son, "respect your elders, all of them." And so Hos and I maintained a respectful attitude, for the sake of his mother and Mr. Conroy's stories and pies.

It was inevitable that one of the conventions Mr. Conroy had no use for was organized religion. He could speak at length on a man's right to believe John Foster Dulles was from Neptune, but he hated the notion of coercion. That is what precipitated the feud between Mr. Conroy and Pastor Cecil Fickes of the Pentecostal Church several blocks down the road from Conroy's Market. Even my father disliked Pastor Fickes. He couldn't talk of anything but God and the Devil, and though he wanted to be the former, he looked more like the latter. My mother said that's what made him work so hard.

Mr. Conroy had thrown Pastor Fickes out of his store several times. "No preaching allowed," he said, showing the man of God to the door. Hos had witnessed one of their more heated exchanges and had come out on the side of Mr. Conroy. The Hoskovec family was Catholic, anyway. We weren't anything.

Hos and I were both there the afternoon that Pastor Fikes parked on the shoulder of the road in front of Conroy's in his '52 Plymouth station wagon. He had rented a dual trumpet loudspeaker for the top of the car, and he stood on the front bumper. microphone in hand, and began to preach the gospel. He was really blasting, calling us all to the grace of God, but given his location and recent history, it was quite clear what and whom he was aiming at.

Mr. Conroy looked disgusted. He said, "Well, boys, this is a new tactic. The propagandist has amplified himself." We were in our customary spots on the cases of oil, munching our pies.

"Maybe his battery'll go dead soon, Mr. Conroy," Hos said. "Nope, son, he's got the engine idling to keep it up." He

pushed open the screen door and walked outside. "Hey," he

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Hemenway

yelled, "Hey, Mr. Holy Roller, why don't you move along?" The loudspeaker squawked as Pastor Fickes stopped talking

and squinted at Mr. Conroy. He was sweating in his dark coat, white shirt and tie, and his greased hair glistened in the sun. Hos and I watched through the window. Pastor Fickes, using the loudspeaker, said, "Public property here on the shoulder, sir."

"Yeah, but you're making a nuisance in my store," he yelled back. "My customers can't eat on account of you." He jerked his head at Hos and me, standing in the window.

"I'm doing the Lord's work, sir," Pastor Fickes said, huffy now. And he started again.

He wasn't quite back up to speed, but he almost had his work and travail cadence going when Mr. Conroy came back into the store, pulled his baseball bat from behind the counter and walked outside again. It was the first time I noticed his limp, mainly because this was the first time I'd ever seen him move anywhere except behind the counter. He strode nevertheless up to the car, cocked the baseball bat and then unloaded on the offending speakers attached to the top of the car. He beat them back to pot metal, leaving Pastor Fickes dumfounded, holding the useless microphone poised in front of his mouth.

Mr. Conroy was smiling as he walked back toward the store. Hos and I had moved outside to the steps to watch the demolition. "Come on, boys," he said, heading inside and over to the wall refrigerator. "I don't normally do this during business hours, but I'm going to have a beer." He broke open a six-pack of Heidelburg and pulled out a can. He grabbed two Squirts for Hos and me and said, "On the house." He walked back to his chair, sat down and opened his beer with a can opener pulled from under the counter. The Louisville slugger .returned to its customary spot as well.

We didn't pay much attention to Pastor Fickes' departure. Hos and I were amazed by Mr. Conroy's attack on the speakers. "You'll notice I did him no harm, boys," Mr. Conroy said

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Hemenway

proudly. "I am a logical man. I removed the offensive element. The pastor himself is an errand boy, a stooge for the high and mighty." We nodded our understanding as we gulped our free drinks and listened to the old man's account of an adventure the one we had just witnessed had recalled for him. Spain again, among mountains and cities I couldn't even pronounce.

We did hear the crackle of a new loudspeaker, though, and when we looked outside, we saw four sheriff's cars arranged in a semi-circle in front of the store. Sheriff Larry Kessler himself was leaning on the hood of the Ford. "Leland," he called out, "Leland this is Sheriff Kessler. I want you to throw out your guns and let those two boys you got in there go home."

"Well, that was quick," Mr. Conroy said, smiling at Hos and me. He stood up and walked to the door, but he didn't go out. He peered at the sheriff's presence outside his store, and he said, almost in a whisper, "The New Falange sends its greetings." He motioned Hos and me back, and I recognized the sound of pump shotguns being worked. "No call for all this, Sheriff. I don't have any guns," he called out the door. I peeked over the window sill and saw the sheriff in conversation with Pastor Fickes, whose greasy head was just visible above the car hood.

"All right, you say you got no guns. Send those boys out then," Kessler said.

Mr. Conroy looked down at us, and he was about to tell us to leave, I think, but Hos yelled out the door, "What do you want us for? We didn't do anything."

More conversation between Pastor Fickes and Sheriff Kessler followed. We watched it under the smile that had spread over Mr. Conroy's face as it turned to a chuckle and finally a laugh.

"We don't want you boys, we just want you to come out here where it's safe," Sheriff Kessler said, fighting to stay calm.

47 49



Hemenway

I was beginning to get into the spirit of the proceedings myself by then. I shouted, "We're safe in here. You got the guns, not us."

Slowly, the shotguns and pistols bristling over the tops of other police cars began to point skyward, instead of at the store. Somebody laughed. There was another conversation between the sheriff and the pastor, this one much louder. Then the sheriff called over his bullhorn, "Look here, Conroy. do you have hostages in there or not?"

"What's a hostage?" Hos whispered. I shrugged, unsure myself, as Mr. Conroy began to laugh in

earnest now. "Sheriff," he called out the door, "nobody in here except two of my regular customers. Cash customers, I might add. They can do whatever they feel like."

"That true, boys?" Sheriff Kessler called out. "Could you leave if you wanted to?"

"Yes, sir," I yelled. "We just stopped by for a pie." The sheriff exploded then. "Jesus H. Christ, what's going

on here, Fickes?" he roared. Pastor Fickes was standing up now, cringing in the sheriff's wrath.

Mr. Conroy walked back to the counter, picked up his baseball bat and returned to the door. He opened the screen and tossed the bat out into the gravel beside the pumps. "I'm unarmed now, sheriff. You want to come in here for a Nehi or something, we can straighten this out. But you keep that preacher outside my store."

A few minutes passed as Sheriff Kessler huddled with his deputies, then the cars left, leaving the Sheriff's the lone car outside the store. Pastor Fickes sat hunches over in the back seat.

"Leland," Sheriff Kessler said, opening the screen and stepping inside.

There was _a lot of talk then, about the law and property and peaceful ways to settle differences. Most of it was probably for our benefit. Hos' and mine. The sheriff did have a Pepsi, and he allowed that Pastor Fickes could be a

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Hemenway

pain in the ass, but he was going to have to resolve this conflict according to the law. Mr. Conroy made it easy for him. He offered to pay for the damage he'd done and appear in court to answer the malicious mischief charges, but in return, the sheriff had to write Pastor Fickes up for creating a public nuisance. When the sheriff agreed to the terms of the settlement, Mr. Conroy beamed with the pleasure he felt, and he opened himself another beer. Sheriff Kessler left shaking his head, but not without telling Hos and me to get home. He was still cleaning up, and when he pulled away, his car shot thirty feet of gravel behind him.

My father read in the newspaper how a tense situation had been averted in a local store, but that was the next day. I had neglected to tell anyone of the adventure at Conroy's Market. I looked up the word 'hostage' in the dictionary and was thrilled to think that the sheriff himself had thought I might be one. When I finally did buckle under my father's grilling, and he had all the facts straight, he had to laugh himself. "Old Leland Conroy is quite a guy, I guess. Just don't take him too seriously."

Hos wasn't so lucky. He got a thrashing in the basement with his father's belt. Neither one of us could ever figure out why, and even though he was forbidden to go back to Conroy's Market, Mrs. Hoskovec continued to shop there when she needed credit until the end of the month. I know that for a fact because Mr. Conroy gave me a job later that spring. I swept up and gassed cars and even stocked shelves when on that rare occasion, some item did sellout.

"Work is what it's all about, son," Mr. Conroy would say from his chair as I swept between the three narrow aisles. I believed he was right, for I was disappointed beyond belief when the county called my mother and told her I had to give up the job because I was to young. Mr. Conroy said Pastor Fickes had reported us, and I believed it.

"That's just your first taste of it, Brother," he told me. "No telling what the Empire has in store for you." That was

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the day he taught me the words to the Internationale. The following Sunday we stood outside Pastor Fickes' church and sang it three times at the top of our lungs.

so 52



Phillip Hemenway

THE ORACLE OF DELPHI

I had to leave school again. This time nobody died and pulled the meaning of life rug

from under my feet. No one got sick and required my presence on the road back to health. No one needed me.

Perhaps that was the problem. Cynthia MacDonald and I were on the nuptial verge until she had a job offer from a small midwestern college. She wanted me to come along but there was no place for me in the picture. I had no degree yet, and no way to complete it in time for the big move to heartland. Cynthia and I discussed it, and I was startled by her rapid acceptance of my point of view. She was Dr. MacDonald now.

There I was, between women again, writing toa warm memory in Illinois and turning on the defrost charm in every bar and restaurant I knew. By day I attended lectures and taught my own class to keep my fellowship, but I was preparing to jump ship at the end of fall term. I employed the eating and drinking all over town therapy, the heart-on-the-mend routine we call on when the void reaches maximum proportions.

I left the Towne Lounge after two games of shuffleboard and a few highballs, heading for a new restaurant I had heard about way out on Palmetto Avenue. Nobody in the place was game to try a new eatery so I went alone. I walked in, got a corner table and ordered a bottle of wine. One glass into it, I was assaulted.

A stereo speaker on the wall simply dropped down on me. The shelf that held it surrendered to a poorly set screw, and the large wooden box was launched. It missed my head, brushed my shoulder and caught me on the arm just above the elbow. It hurt, a deep muscle bruise, but it was not severe. I stared blankly at the offending speaker for a few seconds as reality wound its way to my brain though the highballs and wine, then I was surrounded by waiters, busboys, and assorted kitchen help.

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The place was new and uncrowded, but I suspect they were all seeing their jobs disappear in the smoke of litigation. They offered ice, doctors, bandages, and brandy. I asked for more wine. The waiter poured it as one of the busboys carted off the fallen speaker as if he intended to spank it in the kitchen.

That was when she made her appearance. She was tall and slender, with blondish curls and blue eyes that looked out from an altogether eighteenth century face. There was 3

small, perfectly formed mouth and a sweetly sculpted chin that made me think of a cameo I'd bought for my aunt Hallie in Florence. She spoke softly, with considerable sympathy that was more concerned with me than her tenuous situation. She felt badly. She felt badly. Such an occurrence did not auger welJ for the success of her restaurant.

The idea of lawsuit flashed once in a cerebral neon, but I calmed her and everyone else immediately by ordering too much to eat and pooh-poohing the speaker.

She introduced herself as Fran Chamberlain, and she acted as private hostess for me for the rest of the evening. As she served each course, we chatted about the food, wine, history, and the American palate. It was all very amiable, and very pleasant despite my swolJen arm. She walked me to the door when I left. I was full of it by then, and said, "Well, Fran, aside from the haul-parleur lombe, this was an excellent dinner. I'll be back."

She laughed at my silly culinary joke, then asked blandly, "And will I be hearing from your solicitor shortly?"

She was joking and I was flattered by her self-assurance. I said, "I only sue the right people. Not to worry." I think I winked at her. We shook hands and I left with a sore arm and an open invitation to Fran Chamberlain's restaurant.

I became something of a regular, known to the staff at Franfare as Speakerman, the Death-Defying Diner. My first night had established a theme. Fran joined me whenever I was alone, which was most of the time. She usually had some new

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Hemenway

wine for us to sample and discuss. It pleasured me to watch her languid sips from the glass as she surveyed the action in her restaurant.

In her own leisurely way, Fran liked me. I saw it clearly one night when I did bring a woman to dine with me. Fran seated us, then departed quickly. As [glanced up later from my table conversation, I saw her watching me through one of the small windows in the kitchen doors. She raised a wine glass and touched the window with it. And she winked at me. I think I blushed like a schoolboy, and right then I would have given moon and stars to have her seated across from me.

I believe she had me figured out. Of course [ knew early on there was a man, one she was very

fond of who lived far away. [entertained the hope she might accept me as a proxy, her local gigolo and answer to the hollow. It all crept up on me. I never asked about this man for fear of tampering with, perhaps ruining a fragile arrangement: food, wine, and Fran, in her restaurant; all my weaknesses in one place. She never volunteered any information about this distant him, and perhaps she was relieved in some obscure way when I did bring a woman to dinner at Franfare.

About a week after that night, I went back to the restaurant, alone. Tim, the headwaiter, seated me, and when I asked after Fran, he said, "She's gone to Athens again." He emphasized the again. "She has a fellow there, you know. Sees him half a dozen times a year but she's been busy with her..."

I didn't hear the rest of what he said, didn't really listen. A Greek. An olive brown, Aegean soul had captured the heat of my blonde Francesca. I was made jealous by clarity. She was gone, off to Athens to mingle with her charming hoplite. And this was a habit of hers.

I drank far too much that night. Tim sent me home in a cab. I didn't return to Franfare for many weeks, mainly because I embarrassed myself, but tnere was some amorphous

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resentment tingeing my absence. When I did return**actually, I gave in**Fran was there, a bottle of secret chardonnay at the ready. I think perhaps she was waiting for me.

We picked up where we left off, right at the table. I sat down, pointed to the blackboard where she had written the Greek specialties offered for the evening, and Fran joined me with two bottles of Greek wine and a discreet peck on the top of my head. She was trying to keep the aura of Greece alive all around her, and I did what I could to help her.

"So," she said somewhere among the souvlaki, the Greek salad and the moussaka, "when are you going to swallow your pride and follow your heart east to, what was her name, Cynthia?" She giggled at her own tone.

"Never happen. But I could ask you the same question," I said.

Her eyes flared for a second. "What do you mean?" "How is Stavros?" Fran looked away from me, and when she turned back, her

eyes had softened again. "His name isn't Stavros. It's Pannos," she said softly.

"Close," I chirped, too cheerfully. "How is he?" "Fine, just fine." She did not want to talk about him. I should have realized

that a long distance romance implies a certain pain when it is reciprocal. My case didn't count. I might as well have pulled her hair or stomped her toes. Maybe that's what I intended and I apologized. Coffee and Metaxa soon shifted us to a more general focus. We talked, but she came back to the subject of Greece, Greek men in general, and the history of the place. I stayed with her, calling on the courses in history and classics I had wandered through at various times. We warmed up again, got along.

And then I did a stupid thing. The wine, the brandy, the olive oil, all ganged up on me. In a rush of Hellenic sentiment, I said, "By the way, I'm going to Greece myself. Soon. Probably in the spring."

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Hemenway

Fran's stare fell over the rim of her glass and caught me in mid-sentence. Her eyes were moist, but she saw very clearly. She set her glass down and said very precisely, "Then you'll have to go see him, won't you."

"Of course, of course," I blathered. "I'll take a whole satchel of billet-doux for you. Hand deliver them. Where does he live? Athens?"

"No," she said, staring out at the stark winter night, "he lives in Delphi. You are going there, aren't you?"

I nodded. Of course I was, now. "Delphi is where all truth-seekers must go, at least once, right?"

"You'll find something like truth there," she said dreamily. Then she added, "He's a jeweller, very talented. I give you his address before you leave." She winked at me, patted my cheek with an open palm and walked into her kitchen. I navigated home that night, suddenly bound for Greece.

I finished the term and spent the holidays with my sister, all the time not really accepting the idea of a trip to Greece. I had boasted, that was all. I had been to Europe, but not Greece. But I had promised myself a break from the grind. I had the money. My passport had another year before it expired. The signs were propitious, and I began somewhat unconsciously to buy clothes and prepare for a trip. In keeping with the ageless mystery of my destination, and as a test of my own sense of humor, I reserved a flight from San Francisco to Athens departing March 21, the day of the equinox.

The night before I was scheduled to leave, I sashayed into Franfare to find a little party waiting for me. There was a wonderful dinner, prepared without olive oil because Fran told me I would get my fill of it soon enough. A sp~cial chocolate torte and bottle of ouzo supplied by one of the waiters rounded out the affair. We all drank the ouzo as the restaurant closed, and the waiters and kitchen help saluted me repeatedly. Fran handed me a bottle of California

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Hemenway

cabernet, quite a good one, with a letter taped to it. "Don't you dare read it," she warned. A chorus of hoots and jeers fell upon her from the staff. She blushed, gave me an awkward little kiss on the cheek, and wobbled her retreat to the kitchen.

I found myself on a 747 the next afternoon, a thing of pure torture for me under the best of circumstances, but considering the hangover I had, it was more a minor Inquisition. Then Athens came, where I dodged all manner of motor vehicles and tried to breathe for a few days. I lasted four days in the city, then rented a car and escaped the madness. I looked back on the place--Lycabettus, Omonia, Acropolis, Plaka--with a new vibrancy coming over my museum legs. I was after the Greece of Schliemann and Arthur Evans now. Or the Greece of Fran Chamberlain. I couldn't rule that out.

I drove through small villages and fields for several hours until a great granite face loomed ahead of me. It reminded me of similar outcroppings in the Sierras, but there was starkness to the mountains I found eerie. Its lines shimmered in the early spring breeze blowing up from the Gulf of Corinth. Grass gave way to the cold gray of the rocky mountain. I pulled out my Baedeker and .felt foolish. I had just sneaked up on Mount Parnassus, home of the muses.

I drove on through steeper terrain until Delphi appeared in the distance, perched on the mountainside above the gulf. Olive trees stretched in every direction, all the way down to the tankers anchored in the sea. Goat bells tinkled lightly in the invisible distance. It was the most sternly beautiful place I had ever seen, in spite of the smattering of early tour buses outside the ruins of the ancient shrine. I decided to carry out my mission before venturing into the site. I drove into town, discovered it had only two main streets, and orbited twice before I found the shop Fran directed me to. I parked the car, picked up the wine and letter and walked into the shop. A tall, handsome young man

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greeted me, and I said, thrusting a bottle at him, "From Fran."

"Ah, the American woman," he said. "I am Spiriros. Pannos is gone to Athens. He will return at five. Will you have coffee?"

Spiros was more than gracious. He poured coffee for me and I wandered through the store, admiring the handiwork of Pannos Klissouras. He was very good, very original in his designs, but discreet. Like Fran. 1 finished my coffee and picked up the wine. "I'll visit the ruin, then come back," 1 told Spiros. He made it clear I could stay. After all, I was a friend of a friend. He escorted me warmly from the shop.

I checked into the Hotel Vouzas, stashed my bag and headed for the ruins. I was, after all else, visiting Delphi to drink from the Castalian Spring, to plunder the last rich crumbs from the ancient tables. I wandered among marble pediments and stunted columns, recalled in epiphanic bursts pieces of lectures and books. Looking far down the canyon at the River Pleistos, 1 conjured up every superlative that I could cram into my mind. I giggled with each wave of recognition, but I was awed by the largest of ironies. Naturally, Fran Chamberlain would pick a man who lived in the most spectacular place in the world. That was plain funny. Temples, tombs, history stood all around me, and I gloried in them with the private excess of the novitiate.

It was bizarre to consider, but the ruins closed and I went back to town, stopped at my hotel to shower and change, then went back to the shop with my gift for Pannos. When I arrived there, the store was crowded with people, but none of them appeared to be tourists. Several women were crying, and when I tried to enter the shop, a man forced me out, saying, "We close. You come tomorrow." Then I saw Spiros. He recognized me. His eyes were rimmed in red, his hair rumpled in sharp contrast to the dapper, personable young purveyor of fine gold I had met earlier in the day. He croaked something

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in Greek, and the man forcing me out suddenly softened and pulled me back through the door. He locked it behind me.

"Please, you sit down," Spiros said. His voice caught. "We have great sadness now."

I was inside and warm, out of the cold wind that had begun to whip up from the gulf, but suddenly, it felt as if that wind had found a clear path to my heart. There was trouble and I shivered. An old woman poured ouzo and offered it to me. 1 accepted, all the while' waiting for an explanation. None came, so I asked, "What's wrong, Spiros?"

Everyone turned on Spiros expectantly, waiting for his reply. He drank from a glass, then said very carefully, "Pannos, he visit his children in Athens. I tell you this. But we have an incident with truck when he come back. Pan nos is die today."

The pronouncement, in a language not his own, sent a wail through the people in the room who knew some English. It was as if they had heard it for the first time. I choked up myself, but I was unsure how to act. I didn't even know the man, but 1 felt a terrible hurt, for Fran, no doubt, and I could not help feeling like a hypocrite. I thought of my own close calls in Greek traffic, and offered condolences. "1-1 did not know him," 1 said lamely, and they nodded at me, though 1 might say something that would explain it all. Then 1 thought of Fran and her melancholy wistfulness, and the wine bottle I carried became an intolerable burden. I said, "What about Fran?" It was not really a Question, but Spiros approached me, an infinite grief shining in his eyes.

"The American woman," he sighed. "You must teU her, OK?" I wanted to scream a refusal, but that was impossible. The

people in the room had begun a kind of lament, all of them, a delicate rising and falling of their language starting the purge of their distress. I shook hands all around and left.

I could not stand still. 1 could not eat, and I did not want the company of a hotel bar. I went back to my room in the darkness, opened the balcony door and stepped out. The

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running lights of the oil tankers moored in the gulf blinked back up the gorge at me. I paced, took a hot bath, then wrapped up in a blanket and sat out on the balcony. When I could stand my indecision no longer, I opened I opened the wine meant for Pannos. It no longer had purpose. For a second I saw myself pouring it over the coffin of a man I h'ad never met, but who there would have understood? I began to drink it, glass by glass, the familiar warmth of California grapes only made me sadder. I went back out on the cold balcony to my blanket and chair. I finished the bottle of wine, mesmerized by the flickering lights in the gulf.

A little before five in the morning, I awoke, cold and stiff. Sleep had caught me unprepared, and my body was paying the price of my awkward rest. The sour wine taste on my empty stomach sent me'to the water tap, and Ldrank until my stomach ached. I dressed and went down to the dining room. It was not open yet. I decided to walk.

The walk was what I needed. It was cold, but in the half light of dawn, I could see a cloudless sky and burgeoning shapes of olive trees all around. The wind had disappeared, and in the stillness of an hour, all of Delphi's history came to rest on my shoulders. I fingered the letter in my pocket, the other half of Fran Chamberlain's charge to me, and I set off down the road to the ruins of the oracle.

I went to the water of truth and inspiration, the Castalian spring. I found it, climbed the fence right over the sign that commanded NO TOURISTS BEYOND THIS POINT in five languages. This clearly did not apply to me. I walked to the spot where the ancient waters bubbled and gurgled over the stones.

I pulled the letter from my pocket, opened it, but I could not read it. I had no right, but I may not have been the best judge of that issue.

I took off my coat, my sweater and shirt, knelt down and began to scoop water over my chest and face. Then in the absence of the priestess I consulted the spring.

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"What price Hymettus honey?" I asked. "Plenty." . "What of tomorrow's battle?" "Many will die." I drank the water. handful after handful. AU the while

the letter lay on a rock above me. occasionally fluttering on a slight current of air.

I could have read the letter and spared myself a good deal of curiosity and pain. Instead. I pulled Hotel Vouzas matches from my pocket, wadded the envelope and letter up and burned them. I scatter~d the ashes over the moving stream and watched them ride off down the current. bound for the gulf and oblivion. I had made my offering.

The rest is just another of those episodes in which we must remind someone of death's ubiquitousness.

I put shirt, sweater, anq coat back on, walked back to the hotel and consumed three rolls and two pots of black coffee. Then I went to the telephone. It was my job to slay Pannos one more time, this time for Fran, and it had to be done quickly or not at all.

Naturally. the hotel phone was down. The desk clerk sent me to the post office up the street. According to the official there, his meter for time and charges was broken, so I could not make a call because I could not pay for it. However, if I did wish to make a collect call ...

I could not believe my ears. but it was clear that I had no other option at the moment. There was no waiting. I gave the number to the clerk and asked him to place the call. I paced for several minutes. then he motioned me to a call box in the corner of the room. As I picked up the receiver, the texture of olives and feta cheese coated my tongue, and the taste of Fran Chamberlain's wine mingled with the waters of Castalian Delphi Greece.

I put the receiver to my ear, but I was caught by the postal clerk's anticipation. The call was not completed, and

-the nasal twang of a London operator asked a distant, feminine voice, "Delphi is calling for Miss Fran Chamberlain. Can you accept?"

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Mary Ann Henn

PHOTOGRAPHS

A look behind blooms a moment into focus of smug, single minded entrance to a room of battered human beings waiting, skin-prick alert and waiting. Waiting eyes focus on lids fastened to a letter, voice on a hand that snaps a small door shut. "Urn. Postage due. Forty cents." As far away as Peru and as long as four thousand years, maybe.

TALK TIME

Words wounds fly about fall like pop corn

in an open popper. Silence will come in time and spaces will widen

just a pop here there. Some pops exclamation points. Others parentheses. Some travel by stagecoach

others in winged chariots or a ray of sun, pulling

tides in and out. Again some are stars falling

or bubbles bursting while silence is a different thing

altogether.

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E. Ward Herlands

BONDING

Naked ajuga caressing the roots of autistic andromeda & oh, what bonding. This is no rain dance-- no paso doble. This is ajuga posturing, brazen, undisciplined, performing.

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N.M. Hoffman

OCTOBER

October, the coda of the spring, how it trembles against the window bars. The city of refugees broods at the crisp gaze. An explosion interrupts the dim city. Nothing, it was nothing; the children persist in the bright melody of their play. And it is still October, cavernous and cold.

But the smashing light of October reels from childhood and splits open over hayfields and rock fences. the promise is a bare wind. The promise is the silence of the mockingbird, and of the red-winged blackbird who have all disappeared.

The perfect silence stutters for voice and the wind lifts the pause high over the stacked hay and over the cider press that lately had its day. Here, where the swallows swept like a thousand voices into the hot sky, the silence of October reigns, the white light of our fields.

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Hoffman

OCTOBER IN DEEP SNOW

The October sun was a changeling born out of the womb of fall. lt came and went like the last wave of wheat sinking before the blade.

It was a specula tion, the aging of an idea. Where we stood once and took in the shock of the October air, we stand again, our eyes glazed by sun on early snow.

Is it from fear or for relief that we turn gradually inside, step by labored step? If the swallows have cut a final arch across the field, who are we to falter before turning?

Inside, at the stubborn fire, October whistles in the vent. It is October air that braces us for this snow. October light tha t gilds the embers and the ash.

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Joan Payne Kincaid

THE BIG TIME

In dust clouds and bluejeans cruising by cinderblock structures rusty wire fences hold back weeds lit by sun in a wasteland until tints and shades turn blue in the night everything:

trees water cars people

all unite in a kind of blue violence like a lighted fuse.

BIRTHDAY

It was like an old fashioned ballroom in Vienna musicians plucking and bowing through broken glass lying in bed they played

and played on his birthday I was so tired

looking for gifts listening to shutups

when the German Steinway played octaves he snored

while she went out to dance.

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Kincaid

ANOTHER CELEBRATION

I'm dead... thinking italways

in my denigration poems in my kitchen poems

of broken ovens the cold meat closed in there remains raw.

In the park are many options paths to here

or there sand and water in my hand

to feel something this morning I dreamt you were with us Mother... the grains slide away like the dead.

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Kincaid

SONATINAS

Like all those sonatinas I played for the young men and women when we were all students and impressed I could in so short a time so long ago intense young sensitives all of us in love when we were endless music in life was light an easy as notes of lovely birds flying from my fingers.

SPRING

The dance begins stirring a seed that makes a choice to reach out to rise more sexual than before.

Now it dances life in me branching reaching blue rain in wind-blown revolutions scattering pollen cells genes in searching repetition of ancient origins and colors.

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Kincaid

PARTY ON A WINTER NIGHT

"Come with us to the cocktail party" They arrive

in rented black after jetting we glide where no one listens and the hostess passes out as much as anyone can with people no one knows a purpose. A red plush re- appears where we started in silent black snow.

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Murray Lerner

AN ACCIDENT

The eleva tor that was supposed to take John Malloy direct! y to the fourteenth floor instead took him to every floor between the ground floor and the fourteenth. At each landing the door creaked open. Perhaps the elevator's inner workings were off-kilter and it was responding relexively to better days when the building was the hub of the city and passengers crowded into the elevator.

John Malloy's ruddy complexion became redder with every stop. His size 16 shoes paced back and forth; his torso grew stiffer with each step.

"Come on, come on, I have people waiting, " he said impatiently, just as the door opened onto the fourteenth floor.

As John walked down the corridor he peeked into empty offices. All, save one, were devoid of life. The names on the doors were all that remained. "They would make fine gravestones," he thought, arriving at the last door with "Dr. Levine," written on the glass.

Once inside the office he saw an old woman whose fac looked like the tracks of the Chicago railroad station. The tiny tracks ran helter-skelter, but eventually all met in a huge collision ather mouth.

The old woman opened the portal to release a train of words. "Welcome, Dr. Levine will be with you in just a few minutes. Please have a seat." She smiled at John and returned to her private office.

John began to feel beads of sweat forming beneath his red hair. The sweat began to trickle down his brow. He hurriedly wiped away the sweat, hoping the old woman had not noticed.

John did as he was told. He looked for a magazine but could find none. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. His thoughts soon drifted to the woman he had once

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lived with. John and Debbie had shared a two-story apartment in New

Orleans close to a lovely campus that was surrounded by graceful oleander trees. One early spring morning the oleanders had begun to stir, appearing to stretch and yawn in preparation for the new day. Instinctively, the trees felt this would be an exceptional morning.

The sun's warmth on John's face had awakened him. At first he just lay there, lost in a half-dream. Then, Debbie made a sleeping noise. John knew that she wanted him to awaken her.

He gazed at her face a very long time. A longing to be close to her, so close that they would never part, pushed aside all other considerations. John wanted to be her arms so that he could at last touch her. He wanted to be her eyes so that he could end his blindness. He wanted to be inside of her; he wanted to go home and never leave again.

For that moment she was the most intensely beautiful being he had ever seen. She was all that he had hoped for. She was a dream, all too real, and John was everything he had always been too cowardly to be. Any movement and the delicate beauty might be destroyed.

The oleanders shook the lace curtains and the curtains in turn aroused the woman to life. She looked at John with dreamy half-open eyes. They nestled in each other's arms and her eyes closed again. Soon she began to move about in the bed and opened her eyes. He smiled at her. They made love as if they might never see each other again.

Afterward they lay in bed, both gently crying because they knew happiness is fleeting. The oleanders stopped stretching, fully awake now.

"Mr. Malloy, you may come in now." John awoke with a start, for the moment forgetting where he was. The doctor was waiting for him, hand outstretched. John hesitantly stood up. John immediately regretted that he had been so indecisive. He hated all things weak.

"I'm glad to see you. Dr. Walters told me a little about

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you. Please have a seat," Dr. Levine said, pointing to a lavender colored velvet oversized chair.

The office was not what John had expected. A quick perusal revealed that the good doctor had the expensive bookcases lined with not only "shrink" books, but also literary and anthropology books. Probably just trying to impress me. Probably hasn't read half of 'em, John thought.

"Nice office. Read a lot, I see," John said sweetly. "Yes, I do. It's a great way to relax," said the doctor,

pouring a drink of water and offering it to John. John leaned back in his chair, stretched himself to his

full height, his hand in front of himself and said, "No, I don't need water." His face became more concerned and he leaned foward. "You know, doc, I really don't know why I'm here."

"Maybe there's some mistake here, but let me tell you what Dr. Walters said," Dr. Levine said.

"Walters doesn't know which end's up. I've told him a hundred times it was an accident."

"Mr. Malloy, no one accidently slashes his wrist with a rusty razor blade repeatedly. From what I've heard, you were one determined person," the doctor replied.

"Impulse. It was a bad day." "In a long series of bad days?" The doctor's head was

cocked to the side. Levine gazed steadily, make John uneasy. "I had financial set-backs, my marriage was being grilled

to a slow burn. She wants more, always more. I had nothing left to give," gasped John as the air suddenly left his body.

"You've attempted suicide other times, haven't you?" said Levine, gently prodding.

"Only once. I don't count the aspirin overdose." "You don't?" "Nah. The only result from that was that I haven't had a

headache since," John said as he laughed. "You were taken to the hospital." "You insist on being bossy, don't you?" John said,

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bristling. "I insist on doing my job." The doctor appeared calm. "You have the advantage here, don't you?" John said. "Seems a bit unfair, doesn't it?" Levine reached for his

water on the table next to the chair. "Everything's unfair!" John looked away and seemed to

shrink into his chair. "Let's even the score a bit," the doctor said in a voice

full of surprise and tenderness. "Dr. Walters referred you to me because I work well with cases such as yours. Suicide is my cup of tea, so to speak." His voice once again became warm.

"Maybe we should trade places. How the hell did you get interested in suicide?"

"I became interested in death at an early age," Levine sighed warily while gazing at John.

"I know. You wanted to kill your father and marry your mommy? Or maybe the reverse? Freud would be very proud of you."

"John, what were you trying to do when you cut yourself?" "All I know is that for awhile life came into focus. For

once it made sense. Slicing my wrists with a rusty razor was probably the smartest thing I ever did. It was as if all my bad memories flowed out with my blood."

"Tell me about that day. Start at the beginning." "The aspirin day or the razor day?" John flashed a crooked

grin which soon disappeared. "Yeah, I know, the razor day. I can't remember much about my feelings, just that I was happy--relieved."

"Tell me about the day's events, then." "I woke up about four in the morning and kissed my wife.

Probably sent the poor woman into shock," John grinned. "I kissed my kids. The dog was next, but he was too sleepy to come when I called. ' I went into the kitchen, made a strong as hell cup of coffee and read the paper from cover to cover. I wanted to know everything that was going on in the world.

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Lerner

Third World leaders assassinated, starvation in Africa, political strife here. Looking back on it, I guess I thought it was funny. I could have picked up the paper any day for the past fifteen years and read about the same things. I can't remember after that." John looked at the doctor searchingly.

"You were found in the bathroom." "Was I naked?" John reachj!d for a glass of water that was

not there. He began to sweat and his eyes reddened. He looked like a little boy who had discovered for the first time that life is hard and human beings are often exposed.

"Yes, you were naked." "I vaguely remember thinking that I should castrate myself.

I can't remember any more," John said as he clutched the arms of the chair as if he didn't trust his own hands.

"I"m sorry, I just can't remember right now. Maybe later." John shook his head hard to shake away the bad thoughts. "Why in God's name do you want me to remember? I try my damndest to blot it out. I can't."

Both of them were quiet, each lost in his own memories. Finally, John spoke. "Why do you think I was going to castrate myself.?"

"Perhaps you were tired of being a man," Levine said quietly.

"Maybe you're right, but I wanted to give my wife something. I vaguely remember thinking she deserved my testicles more than I did."

"Would she wear them well?" the doctor asked patiently. "That's a funny image," John said as he laugh ted. "On the

other hand, she probably would get used to them. I think I wanted to present her with a gift," John said with a quizical look on his face.

"A very precious gift," Levine said unemotionally. "You got it,doc. The family jewels. The gift for the

woman who has everything." "How do you think she would respond to the gift?"

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Lerner

"How-da hell do I know? I'd be dead," John sourly responded.

"Perhaps you were thinking that you wouldn't really die. You'd be Tom Sawyer at his own funeral."

"That was Huck Finn!" John said convinced he was correct. John's voice rose as his face reddened.

"Is that what makes a man a man, his testicles?" "That and his Adam's apple," John said acidly. Not knowing what to say, Levine sat back and waited. "Maybe I am tired of being a man. I'm so tired of it all.

What's the point." John slid down into the chair. "John, you're like a volcano trying to erupt, fighting

against yourself." "Nature abhors a mixed metaphor. Throw in a few oxymorons

for good measure," John replied as he tried to stave off the tears forming in his eyes.

"Perhaps a mixed metaphor, but correct." The doctor leaned forward.

From the recesses of the oversized chair, John said, "I just want to be human. That's all, no more, no less."

"Levine sat back in the chair as John continued to grapple with himself. A self-satisfied smile crossed Levine's face just in time for John to see it. Levine knew it was Tom Sawyer, not Huck Finn.

"You think this is funny, you sadistic son-of-a-bitch?" "No, no!" the doctor quickly replied. "Don't play God with me. I pay you $100 an hour. I could

talk to God for a lot less." John's hands slipped from the arms of the chair onto his lap. "I'm not a fooL"

"Did you feel castrated by me?" "You can't take them away. I only give them away to people

who I think will use them wisely." John defiantly responded. "Would your wife have used them wisely?" "She was always a better man than I was. I was weak and

she was strong. I pretended to be strong, but I knew better, I knew she knew. My employees and partner knew that on the

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Lerner

outside was a man of decision who acted with force, but on the inside was a scared. lonely little boy who wanted someone to take him home with them."

"How did you know they knew?" Levine sat straight in the large chair.

"Because my partner and best friend once called me a bully and threatened to knock me out if I didn't grow up and stop ranting and raving, and he's only 5'7". I'm 6' 2"."

"And how did you react?" "I was shocked. I sat back in my chair, drew myself to my

full height and replied, 'I think I love you'. He walked out of the room with a self-satisfied smile on his face. Similiar to your smile."

"Why did you love him?" "I don't know, I just did." "How do you feel about him now?" "I don't know. I never see him because he broke off the

partnership, maybe he got sick of me." John's face tightened, "Maybe he rejected my love."

"Have you ever loved a man?" "Only once. My father. Can I get a drink of water, my

throat's dry." John cleared his throat as he reached out for the china pitcher of water from the table that separated him from Dr. Levine.

"Sure, help yourself." "I halfway expected you to say no." "To such a simple request?" Levine seemed genuinely

astounded. Then regaining his professional composure, "Did your father deny your request for love?"

"I once requested Marilyn Monroe. Alas, she was too busy killing herself. My father was too buy killing himself to hear my requests."

"Did your father actually kill himself?" "No. He just cut himself off from life. From friends,

family. He was lonely, pathetic," John said as he gulped a drink of water.

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Lerner

"How did he cut himself off?" liThe guy really admired John Wayne, not the man, but the

character. Maybe my father believed the only thing worth having between his legs was a horse," John let out with an intense short laugh.

"Like father, like son?" Levine asked hesitantly, not sure he had not spoken prematurely.

"Like Barry Goldwater, like Eugene V. Debs! Why do you insist on making me angry?" John asked with his new-found voice, leaning foward slightly.

"Believe me, I'm not trying to make you angry," Levine responded with equally furrowed brow, leaning foward.

John gave out with a loud laugh. "Then, you really knock me out. You're so damn sincere," John said as he tried to compose himself. This endeavor was not easy because he kept laughing 'to himself and then quickly stifling his laughter by putting his large hand over his mouth. Finally, he said, "There is an element of truth to what you said." John quickly tried to wipe off a distorted smile, but he just managed to smear it. "Uh, yeah. Where was I?"

Levine was about to give directions when John said, "I guess I'm like my father. I'm good with anger but any other emotion, forget it. When I was a kid I'd get emotional and cry. My father would make me go to my bedroom. I'd close my door and masturbate. I always thought my father knew what I was doing."

"Did he ever say anything to you about it?" Levine asked in a quiet voice.

"No, he just looked at me in a certain way. I don't know, maybe I'm paranoid, but he just seemed to look at me in a certain way. My mother never said anything either," John said as he lowered his head into the palms of his hands.

Then, abruptly he lifted his head. "For years I thought I'd go blind from it," John said as he stared at Levine's eye glasses. Once again that same crooked smile crossed John's face.

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Lerner

As if by osmosis, that same smile was transposed to Levine's face. They looked like two children sharing a dirty joke.

John continued, ttl started wearing glasses when I was 13. Had perfect eyesight until I was 13. Then my eyes went 'kaput'. Puberty and poor eyesight in one fell swoop. At least I didn't go crazy. Or maybe I did. Is it possible to lose your brain through your penis?"

John continued, "You know I hated wearing glasses. They make me look weak. The other kids called me names. I was pathetic."

"Because you wore glasses?" Levine said in an astonished voice.

"No, because I was weak. When they called me names, I would cry. I hated that. Then I began to get big. No one called me names anymore. I loved that. I got a girlfriend and I stopped masturbating so much. I felt powerful. It's good to feel powerful. You know, doc, control over others is the best aphrodisiac in the world. It's simply unbelievable. The other guys were afraid of me and the girls liked that. I think it made them feel secure. When you're with the top of the heap, you're also the top of the heap."

"Yes, but you're still sitting on a heap:' Levine said as unemotionally as possible.

"It's all a heap, or hasn't anyone told you? At least at the top you're downwind," John said looking over his shoulder as he reached for another drink of water.

"So your goal in life is to be king of a heap. So is yours. Your dung heap is of an intellectual variety, but it still smells the same."

"Your opinion of women smells, to say the least. What was your mother like?"

"She was a good woman in a bad situation that she was impotent to get out of. I'm not even sure she tried to. Maybe she liked her misery. I know she got used to it."

"It w,as difficult to get out of bad relationships in those

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days, especially with kids." "There were three of us. It would have been difficult, but

still she could have done it anyway. She broke her heart, and she died of a massive coronary."

"It must have been hard on you watching both your parents so miserable, you must have felt very fragile," Levine said reaching for the china cup of water.

"I wondered why I was born. I mean what in the world was the purpose. They were miserable, I was miserable. The world was gray, and yet they were so worried about dying. Did you see the movie 'Premature Burial'?" John was leaning forward now. Not waiting for an answer, John hurried on, "I was scared to death after seeing that movie. You know why?" Once again without waiting for an answer, "Because everybody, including me, was buried alive. I know what that guy was going through. The choking, gasping for air. Wanting to live, but watching his life slip away. Remember how he scratched and clawed at the coffin. Boy oh boy, that one scared the hell out of me."

"Did he die?" asked Levine gently, finishing off his water. " No, he came back to haunt those who buried him alive,"

John replied as he leaned back in his chair. Levine sat quietly with eyes closed. Finally, "Do you

think he felt better afterwards?" "I don't know, doc. I'm really not sure." John, too,

leaned back and closed his eyes. "I think so, but who knows."

There was a long silence. The only sound was the "whir" of the old window unit air conditioner. Each person sat with eyes closed until a soft knock was heard at the door.

John's eyes were half opened now. The old woman was standing in from of him. "Mr. Malloy, wake up. Dr. Levine will see you now."

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Thomas McCraw

RHYTHM ABSTRACTIONS

Incandescent tones float and flower in improvisation. Emotion lingers in the notes and subtle powers. A lone saxophone bleeds rhythm and remorse; Muted trumpets repeat a heartfelt chorus; Brassy guitars wing, with squinted eyes, Reflections of efforts of the heart to understand. Jazz that cries a pervasive sound From squinted eyes and calloused hands. Rhythm abstractions in musical modes; The power of depression retained.

THE MELODIES OF SONG

The motions and the sounds stir a symphonic night. In rhythm with the heart of hearts; The conscious flow of dreams; As if some harmony intended to persist: All if some odd director perched within the mist.

A moonlit tree observes the spotlight with discourse: Attuned to the flow of melody set right. It is the churn of life that moves upon The deeper melodies of song.

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McCraw

TO MISFORTUNE

Perhaps I should regret The loss of your affection: The lack of intention on my face: The fear colored in your eyes. But I regret the larger scheme of things: The gray hair without comfort, And Sunday walks alone. I regret the ocean without me, And all the things I planned to be but never was.

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D.S. Moir

HEART ATTACK

"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you might just find you get what you need."

-Mick Jagger/Keith Richard

His head lay cradled between the liquid flow of her breasts, absorbing the morning warmth; the tub-dub, lub-dub of her heart gently rocking straight into his brain. The magnificent pulse convected power right into his own body, yet it was also like a subtle alarm sounding in the background. He loved the nourishment absorbed through the fine skin of her breast, but feared the power of that unseen pump, pulsing below the surface. He didn't want to be falling in love; wasn't ready for the responsibilities and irresponsibilities that emotional state incurred. He had been steady for years, rational even. But the giddiness was there, that feeling in him that demanded attention twentyfour hours a day. He couldn't put words to it, but it seemed as though lub-dub, lub-dub, was screaming to pump his blood through her heart, too; stirring and mixing, brewing their blood as one. Lub-dub, lub-dub; the calvalry hooves of new love charging at him, whipping up the blinding dust. His wife wouldn't be amused.

"Do you realize how much a good doctor can tell about your heart by just listening with a stethoscope? It is truly amazing, what its rhythms, clicks and thuds can tell a good stethoscope jockey."

"Is that what you're doing? So what does my heart have to say this morning?" she asked.

"I don't know, but it sounds good and strong to me. I think you'll live until lunchtime at least," he replied.

"You know that's not what I mean, you creep." She gently

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rolled his off her chest and sat up, running her fingers through her morning hair. As it fell away from her face, he marvelled at how anyone who looked that good so early in the morning could be in bed with him. .

"What amazes me is that the stethoscope is an American invention, thought up right down at 27th and First Ave by the boys at Bellevue. Doesn't that make you proud to be a New Yorker?" he asked.

"How can you so callously change the subject? You don't need a stethoscope to hear what my heart is saying. It says..."

"Christ Sally, I know what your heart is saying. I'm not sure I'm ready to heat it vocalized."

"Well if you're not ready for audio, try visual. Look into my eyes, you'H find the same message," she said.

He had read that all adult eyes are basically the same size, and that only facial structure makes certain eyes appear larger that others. He had a hard time believing that when it came to Sally. He could walk right into her eves. and never come out. And the message was very clear to him. It had been long enough, it wasn't a passing fancy; they were just too damn comfortable together. There was no doubt in his mind of her love for him. So let her say it. Thub-dup, Thub-dup, thub-dup........he wasn't afraid of her loving him, but he was afraid of how he would act, in love again.

This love had been coming over him in a subtle yet incontrovertible manner. If pressed to describe it he could liken it most simply to a long sea passage he had experienced as a young man. His marriage had become like that passage, long. Although going in the right direction, it was stifled with the ennui known well to sailors in the mid-pacific; days from land, merely churning out the miles each day. Piercing the meridians one by one like anniversaries, denying tediousness, the ship of marriage sometimes suffering stability problems in the squalls that blew across their trackline.

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He kissed Sally's nose and swung out of bed. Opening the curtain he was treated to one of his favorite sights, the Manhatten skyline. Across town the low sun's rays tried to claw the gleaming facets off the Chrysler Building. The noise of the mid-town streets welled up to him as he allowed himself to awaken to city reality. But was it reality, with Sally over there in the bed they had just unmade?

"Why are you looking at me that way?" Sally asked after he had turned his gaze from the city vista.

Silent for a moment he said, "1 dunno, 1 think I'm having a heart attack."

She looked seriously at him, then started apprehensively. "I hope you're kidding. You look fine." "I feel fine. I'm having a heart attack. Every time I

look at you I have a heart attack. Or is it a head attack. I don't know. Let's get philosophical and decide whether this feeling I have for you comes from the head or the heart. The ancients have pretty well thrashed that subject over, yet I marvel at the total swoon I feel even at this advanced age for a woman of your charms. Maybe I'm having a loin attack."

"You are a disgusting individual. How could I possibly want to tell you that I love you," she laughed.

"Ah, don't say it..." he said, " and don't even think of throwing that pillow at me."

"I was thinking more about this vase, something with a little clout to it."

"Tha1's not a t all philosophical," he retorted. "It's a Greek vase. But you have no time for such a heavy

breakfast. What time is your appointment downtown?" Sally asked.

"Soon, very soon. I must shower and be off." Dressing in front of the open window, he marvelled at the

precise order of her things about the room. She had undressed neatly, hung her clothes and underthings together; he wondered if she was always uncluttered. She certainly wasn't precise and orderly in bed. She had a lovely wild

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streak that was something like a seventh wave. It was always in her, just over the horizon. You could count on it to liven up a grey day, or a dull party.

She had watched him dressing, and asked, "Do you always dress in front of open windows? I mean is this desire to expose yourself something I should know about you?"

"No, not at all. One of the things I love about New York is the anonymity of the city. No one knows me here, especially this high up in the sky. Do you think it will scandalize anyone?"

"Maybe the helicopter pilot for Shadow Traffic likes boys...or maybe it's a she-pilot," she smiled.

"And you call me a disgusting individual. What time for lunch and where, my sweet?" he asked. "I have to go downtown this morning, but I'll be back in midtown shortly after noon. What are your plans?"

"There's something I have to do on 57th St., so why don't we meet at that place we had lunch last year, around the corner on 7th Ave. I always liked their food, and it will be convenient for both of us."

"Agreed. I'll miss you this morning," he said. It was true. She was easy to be with; she was the honey in his tea. "I"ll see you at one."

A cab presented itself quicker than he expected for the time of day, and he was soon slamming down the minefield of West River Drive. He always wondered in which Eastern-bloc country they trained these unintelligible terrorists to be New York cabbies. They drove like death was their duty; each run was a practice suicide mission on an unsuspecting embassy. He had picked up coffee and cream danish at, a stand before hailing the cab, and was proud that his best suit remained unstained as his Bulgarian chauffeur pulverized the suspension of the filthy Checker. This particular fellow had a cat perched on his lap, and hopefully the cat understood the snarled phrases of his keeper.

The World Trade Center streaked upward into the morning

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light like a pair of space shuttles taking off in tandem. He thought of the day he and his wife had watched a tenacious, spidery-fellow climb a corner of one of the gleaming stainless columns. For the better part of a morning they had watched the fearless athlete claw his way to the top. Firemen had rigged an inflatable bag below him in case the wind didn't blow him out into the concourse if he fell. He shuddered as he thought of his wife, at home in London, and realized that he didn't even have the artificial protection of that inflatable bag as he hung himself from Sally's heights.

He stopped the cab in front of the Vista Hotel and stood on the pavement admiring the twin colossi which he counted among his favorite buildings in the world. A far cry from the soft-rounded magnificence of St. Paul's in London, or the shattered grandeur of the Parthenon; but just as much a monument to man's constructive genius. He turned south toward the Battery, hoping to be able to walk through the park before the appointment on State Street.

The spring weather nourished him as he walked along the busy sidewalk. Crossing into the park was difficult in the morning traffic, and as he ran in front of the southbound traffic pressing for position into the Battery Tunnel, he felt strange, slightly nauseous. The chorus of horns his crossing had spawned swirled in his tympanum, he staggered and felt unbalanced. The park pleased him in the morning light, and he soon felt normal. A Staten Island ferry was making up for the landing, full and down with morning commuters. Lady Liberty was being coy behind her screen of scaffolding, and would emerge soon in her newly laundered gowns and burnished crown to dazzle all within the loom of her torch. The Narrows Bridge framed the wet melange of ships, tugs, ferries, and a lovely sailing yacht that was tacking in straight for the seawell.

Looking at his watch, he found enough time to sit and marvel at the grace of the boat as it held its tack; the

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sails drawing perfectly and everyone on deck poised to execute the turn at the skipper's bark. There was not a wasted motion, no confusion - simple harmony betweem the men on deck, the skipper, the beautifully crafted boat, the wind and tide. The ensign fluttered clear of the transom on the tack and he was pleasantly surprised to note the elegant boat's name: SALLY of Montauk.

It was time to walk the last few hundred yards to the office which overlooked the park. He marvelled at the fact that at any given hour, there were always people scattered throughout Battery Park. As in any city park, some of them were there for less than savory purposes; but most were simply exercising park rightS in this beautiful, historic green. One couple was up against the rounded, worn walls of a fortification. She was sitting up in the smooth gun part as he stood kissing her....a far better use than that intended hundreds of years ago.

The meeting with the admiraltly attorney had gone well...no surprises thought Jack, as he bought a token for the subway ride back uptown. No business surprises, that is. But Ed Riddle, the able lawyer who handled his firm's trans-atlantic interests had expressed concern over Jack's health. They had worked and played together for twenty years, and Ed was familiar enough with his associate to express alarm at the way Jack looked. He had fended off the well-meant inquiries with retorts about the rigors of trans-atlantic flight, the horrors of hotel room beds, the cacaphony that qualifies nighttime in Manhattan.

As he boarded the defaced train, he caught a glimpse of himself in the grimy window. He didn't think he looked that bad but the wave of nausea earlier in the morning had !llarmed him. He loved his Silk Cuts, and his weight was up. He thought of his favorite uncle, the one he had been named after, who had depressed everyone by dropping dead of a massive heart attack at the advanced age of thirty-six. Nah, not you Jack-o, you're indestructible.

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As the train rattled north ward through the cold black rock of sub-Manhattan, he smiled and thought of THE WARRIORS, that sublime choreography of night violence that none of his friends understood his cinematic passion for. When it came to public transportation, the trains, taxis and buses, the tick would definitely have to go in London's box. He was not afraid of New York's subway, but he had to think about not being afraid.

The walk from the station to the restaurant did not disappoint. The vibrant streets wriggled with the noise, scent and press of the city. There were more beautiful women per square meter in New York than anywhere. Maybe tp.e beaches of Rio de Janeiro could claim that honor, where the women were as fine and plentiful as the sand itself. But the Manhattan women were boldlyl sensual, and threw their telephone numbers at you like Neopolitan women threw their eyes. The bouquet of the hot pretzels, nestling on the pushcarts, tuned his senses to awknowledge his hunger. He was suddenly ravenous, It was the time of the day for protein, and yes, he was hungry for the sight and touch of Sally. The occassional contact of the crowded sidewalks, the aroma of the variously perfumed women teased his keenness for her. A siren's threnody called down a block as he crossed a street, punctuated by the blaring stunted nasal horn of a fire engine responding to an emergency. There could be no city whose careening red trucks and dangling, rubber-clad men worked harder than these.

He hoped she would be early. She would always be up at the bar, this American beauty. She preferred the exposure of the bar. She liked to see and be seen, a lighthouse perched advantageously on a gnarled shore, sweeping her beauty across the smoky horizon. He loved to walk in and claim her from the surf of men that crashed at her feet. They would turn back to each other, to their drinks, as she would focus her radiant beam on him and him alone. She was magnificent.

He was not disappointed. Sally was near the middle of the

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long crowded bar.....being jostled by the three martini bunch. He knew she would be smoking, of all things a Lucky Strike straight. She always smoked in bars, always smoked the old fashioned cigarette. No long, colored weeds for her. She always opened the foil precisely, and refolded it after each use to keep the tobacco out of her purse. He would bring her the duty-free ciggies off the plane, but none of the milky British smokes for her.

He pushed his way through to her and kissed the back of her neck. She turned to him with the radiance he cherished, craved even.

"I'm so glad you were h~re, Sal. I love to walk into a place and find you. I hope I didn't keep you long."

"Jack, do you realize how much I love to see you coming through a crowd, just to me. It works both ways." She kissed his nose. "I just arrived. My first Lucky."

"I'll bet you didn't even have to buy that drink," he smiled.

"Of course I didn't: I'd much rather have you spend your money on me though. Helps my beloved country's trade imbalance. Spread those lovely Pounds around, my transatlantic man."

"With this exchange rate, my lovely Pounds are quite thin, I'm afraid. How was your day?"

"It was wonderful. Everything went wrong, I got a parking ticket and very nearly got towed. I lost one glove, but the whole morning I had you in my mind, and knew that as each hour passed I was getting closer to you. And here you are. So, my day so far has been super," she laughed.

He was constantly amazed at the genuine joy she lavished him with. Each encounter with her was like opening a bottle of fine estate-bottled wine. She was so heady. warm and intoxicating. He had not fallen in love with her. He had plummeted. The parachute that he had carefully packed throughout his marriage had failed to open and he was off on a free fall that widened his eyes and tore at his senses.

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"Jack, would you like something to drink before lunch, it'll be a while before there's a table...are you okay?" she asked.

"Oh yeah, I've never been better. Just having another heart attack, that's all. I've never had it done to me like this before. You're so very special. I simply can't get over the fact that we are...having this time to enjoy. Sorry. I'm out of words again."

"Oh, you and your heart attacks. One day you'll have one and I won't believe you. But I do love them. No one ever had a heart attack just for me before," she laughed.

They enjoyed the wait at the bar. They half-stood, half-sat, touched, laughed and talked of the morning as they waited. They were a couple in every sense. They toasted his wonderful company which was kind enough to pay for his trips to New York more or less at his decretion. "I think I'd better pop off to the Colonies to see how they're mucking things up..." and his bags were packed, reservations made. The diesely stench of Heathrow became a perfume to him. Working in his back garden one day, he had actually erected at the sight of an airliner, glistening off on a westward track. He didn't know whether to blush or laugh at this; but flight, and the instruments of flight, symbolized his escape to her. The Atlantic separated him from his magic kingdom; a mere pond to be skimmed in an aluminum pipe. No phone ringing up there. Have a few drinks, get some work done, and know she would be waiting at JFK. There was nothing quite as wonderful as walking up the jetway and seeing her standing there; for she was waiting with every molecule. Every stand of hair was his...all her candlepower was focused on him.

"So do you still think this is the best hamburgers in the City?"

"You will not let me forget how we Brits despise everything American. yet are secretly addicted to hamburgers. Wait, let me qualify that. We despise everything American except women and hamburgers," he grinned.

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"Women!" "Woman. Best woman. Best hamburger. Yumm. Lovely grub,

just like you. Your bloody beer is horrible though. I would love a half-pint of bitters with this-" he lost all ability to converse. Speech, thought, hearing ...all his senses completely blacked out on him for one dreadful miscrosecond. When they returned it was with a fury that no man deserves to know.

It felt like he had been laid bare-chested across the sun itself. A crushing searing heat snapped up behind his breastbone as he tried to focus on Sally, to meet her eye and telegraph his alarm. The top of his back locked rigid with an agonizing jolt of pain that paralyzed him. There was absolutely nothing he could do except sit there in mortal fear on the rack of his incandescent heart. He fought the urge to jump up and run for help, for attention, but that desire was whimsy. The pain pinned him motionless with an eagerness, a ferocity that he felt was undeserved. The artery in his upper left arm shrieked out for blood, and he knocked over his beer trying to reach up and clutch the arm. He was conscious of Sally's surprise at this intrusion into her meal, and conscious of the amused expression that highlighted her terrific smile, yet for the first time in his life, he had to focus all his concentration on the simple act of breathing. He was drowning in the middle of this goddamn restaurant as this smiling beauty next to him attacked her salad. Air. He had to have cool, sweet air to wrench the flaming sword of pain from his upper body.

"I'm really glad you didn't spill beer into my salad, Jack. It's always so fresh and surprising here and the dressing is wonderful."

He knew she was talking to him, but he had fallen headfirst down into a black well of fear and could not respond in any manner. He knew he had to fight his way out into the fresh air.

"Are you all right? Jack. You can't make me get the

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giggles here like you did in Dallas. Now come on, stop it. Do all Englishmen carryon like this? I simply won't laugh. Once I get started, then I'll get the hiccups and it'll ruin my lunch. I won't look at you. I'll stare at that young waiter over there, and then you'll really have a heart attack." She avoided his wild eyes which were beseeching her for help.

Put those beautiful smiling lips on mine and resuscitate me, he thought. Feed me air. The wave of paralyzing nausea slid back down the beach of his senses and he knew he had to get air or die in the chair. The pain was still obscene, but he felt his voice trickling back, and some distant force helped him stagger to his feet.

"Sal, L.tI He lurched forward and slid the remains of the meal across

and squarely into her lap. Her anger tried to override the laughter she had been controlling at his antics. People were looking at them now, and she didn't like that. He was always clowning in public and she loved this zany side of the proper, discreet man she had fallen for. The mess in the lap of her favorite dress horrified her, and she still failed to look at him... to see death draped over both shoulders, pulling him away from her.

"Heart...attack," he whispered in a voice not his own, as he dropped to his knees, frantically trying to find a door, find air, find whatever it took to live.

"Damn it Jack, you've played that song once too often. Look at what you've done to my dress." She looked up. "You'll get no sympathy from..."

He knelt before her, clutching the table edge. Sweat poured off his brow and his grim, fearful mouth was framed with lips of blue. He turned from her, got up and stumbled toward the door.

"Air. I need some bloody airl" It was a desperate croak rather than a scream. The scream came from Sally as the lights came up on this dreadful charade. She ran after him,

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to get him down, get him stil1. Everyone in the restaurant shrugged off this intrusion into their meal hour. It was New York. The continuing daily theater of life in New York.

Jack reached what he expected to be the lifesaving air of the sidewalk and collapsed hugging a fire hydrant. What earlier had been the refreshing spring air that he had taken for granted, savored even this morning, escaped his labored gasp. He was drowning in the edema that clogged his lungs. Sally was at one minute hugging him, the next minute screaming at passersby to help her.

"Get me a fucking ambulance. A taxi...oh shit get me a doctor." she shrieked down the sidewalk. People just gave her a wide berth, as she circled him like a sheep dog. He knelt there dying; refusing to let go of the cold fireplug which soothed some of the rotten heat which stifled him. He thought of his wife. Thank god they didn't have children. Thank god this hadn't happened in the hotel room during morning exercise. Thank god they had reviewed his insurance lately. He couldn't think of anything else to thank god for. As a matter of fact, he started to curse him for being put through this mad torture. He noticed his fingertips clutching the top of the hydrant were blue. A dirty, deathlike blue. Didn't one of these assholes avoiding him on the street recognize his distress? Didn't anyone want to try CPR on his cyanotic lips? Was everyone scared shitless of catching AIDS? He might not die from AIDS, but because of it! He tried to laugh, but nothing happened.

Sally had never been more beautiful as he looked up at her terrified rage. Her heightened color and flashing eyes suddenly calmed him. Her newly-found profanity amused him. He was being crushed to death by the imponderable weight of his own heart, drowning in his own fluids, but the last sight of his troubled eyes would be this wonderful woman. He really loved her, and wondered if he could find the speech to tell her before his weakened pump stopped completely.

A young black man had passed them, then stopped and turned

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at Sally's invective. He came back as she screamed at him and tried to peel Jack from the hydrant. He told Sally to get a hold of herself and start CPR. He stood in the street trying for a cab as he tried to explain through her hysteria what to do. It just wasn't in her. She desperately wanted to breathe life back into him; to give him back what he had given her these last few years. She knelt above him in her spattered dress, her tears splashing off the back of his neck as his death grip tightened on the hydrant.

A taxi passed the block by. No one else stopped to help. The second taxi stopped. The young man gently pulled Sally away, and they eased Jack into the back seat. The taxi driver didn't like what he saw, but one look at Sally and he decided not to argue.

"Where to Miss?" There was no response. She was blank. The samaritan

stared at the driver. "Jeesus. Get him to the nearest hospital. Now." As the cab moved off uptown, Jack drifted in and out of

pain. He was drifting in and out of life. As they smacked through potholes, the jarring of the cab let him know he was alive. He kept trying to tell her he loved her, but he physically couldn't say it. They turned on IOOth St., and the grey gloom of Mt. Sinai engulfed the cab. By this time the cab driver had entered the realm of seriousness radiated from the backseat. He ran into emergency for a wheelchair as Sally threw a twenty on the front seat. As they wheeled him into the crowded emergency room, Jack saw her for the last time. The tall beauty he had fallen completely, madly, and irrefutably in love with faded into the fog of his desperate pain.

The duty nurse took one look at the remains of Jack McDaniels and wasted no time in punching the alarm button for the trauma team. He was barely in the cardiac room before the doctors and equipment arrived and began the frantic

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effort to stabalize his tenuous condition. He was oxygenated, fibrillated, wired and injected. He drifted in and out of reality as the young men in L.L. Bean shirts and yarmulkes worked frantically to save him. He thought it fitting to be in a Jewish hospital, as strangers nearly always took him to be Jewish, although he knew of no Jews in his modern family history. Those things mattered not to him, especially in this high·tech, low comfort room. He liked lox and bagels...maybe they would let him have some for breakfast tomorrow. What suddenly did matter was the fact that he was going to die so far away from England. As the rapid conversation of his saviors swirled around him, even that fact ceased to cause him concern. He didn't want to die in England either for that matter. Yet the thought of another trans-atlantic flight in the cavernous cargo belly of a jumbo jet, lashed down in a cold coffin, was positively appalling..

Sally's impotent rage had given way to calm efficient dread. She gave the harrassed admitting Jack's vital statistics. No he didn't have insurance, at least American insurance. The emergency room at Mt. Sinai this weekday afternoon was packed with ill-feeling souls. As she tried to explain how Jack's financial responsibilities would be arranged, ambulance after ambulance arrived with their cargo of broken and bleeding bodies. She saw an EMT team three times the first hour she was there. It was incomprehensible that this one hospital could be inundated thus with grief. Above the reception area a large television was spying on People's Court out in Hollywood, with all those suntanned grievants oblivious to the pain and frustration that packed these walls. The long, irregular room had a patina of grime that was inevitable from such continuous, gloomy traffic.

An attending nurse confirmed Sally's fear that Jack's condition was extreme, and that he wouldn't be having visitors for some time. She decided to leave and gather her wits; to try and deal with the fact that she was not next of kin, and that from now on none of the decisions, none of the

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choices were hers. She was going to have to contact Jack's wife in London. And what the hell was she going to do with Jack's th,ings at the hotel? Gathering her wits wasn't as easy as she plannned. She cried incessantly in the cab toward midtown; cried for Jack, but mostly herself, and what she was a bou t to lose.

Posing as a secretary of one of Jack's business associates, she rang Mrs. McDaniels and was annoyed at the strange ring of the British telephone. She dealt with the flat cold accent at the other end of the line with trepidation and sorrow. The thing that surprised her most was that this unknown woman she knew so well expressed shock at the news; shock but no pain, no grief at all. She declared as much as she hated to fly. she would book a flight first thing in the morning. Don't put yourself out, lady. thought Sally, as she finished giving her the hospital number, and her condolences.

She took a hot bath before returning to the hospital. The day's weather had matured magnificantly. People were moving lightly about the streets, with coats slung over their shoulders, tucked over their arms. The ones that weren't smiling were trying hard not to. Sally was not smiling, but she was in con trol as she walked this time in to the dreadful room. Asking after Jack, she was told a doctor would talk with her shortly, and would she please be seated. The young doctor's countenance told her things she had denied thinking about on the way back to the hospital. She too, was surprised that he wore a yarmulke on duty in the emergency room. Maybe if he was good enough, and religious enough, Jack would make it, she thought.

"Mrs. McDaniels, your husband is in a very dangerous condition. I'm sorry to be blunt about this, but we are very lucky he is still alive."

"I'm not his wife. I'm his...associate. His wife is flying in from London sometime tomorrow," she said.

"I'm sorry," he looked away. So am I, she thought. "Mr. McDaniels had a serious coronary disease prior to this

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infarction," he continued. "I'm not sure if he was aware of that. Today's attack was of massive proportions, it killed part of the muscle that regulates the heart's electrical activity; there is so much damage, his heart is virtually dead. We have him on life-support systems at this time.

NOh my god." She was fighting to keep the control she had brought in with her.

"If you are in communication with his wife, you might tell her that her presence is urgent. His only chance now for continued life is a transplant. We have to get him to Cornell Heart Center at New York Hospital. Finding a donor is something that can be most complicated. There are waiting lists. Organ donations are often feast or famine. Moving Mr. McDaniels to Cornell is extremely dangerous. Donor compatibility is extremely important. I'm trying to paint a realistic picture for you, Ms...The bright spot is that quality of life actually improves IF and I repeat if we can pull all the threads together. At this time, there is a tremendous amount of luck required to make this all happen."

Sally listened in horror and disbelief. A transplant. The words 'quality of life' and 'compatibility" 'feast and famine' ricocheted around in her mind.

"Luck is for the rabbits," she smiled coldly at the thin man in front of her. "Just make sure, doctor, that your skills, and those of your colleagues minimize the amount of luck required here." She fought off the impulse to add 'because I love that man in there more than anything in this universe.' He assured her that such would be the case, turned and left her in the dismal anteroom.

Jack's wife arrived from London. Sally checked with a friend at a travel agency and noted the flight. As much as she hated JFK, she was at the arrival lounge to watch as the wearied travellers spilled from the jetway. As she searched the faces with the hope of recognizing her from the picture she had seen, she could only think see Jack running up the ramp to her. His smile and warmth signaling the start of

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that other part of her life she valued so much. It took real effort to focus on what was really happening in front of her. From the middle of the crowd came the face she had been searching for, a few years older than the wallet picture, different hairstyle. She had the particular style that was enigmatic to Sally. A little too flowery, a little too thick in the heel, the overall appearance made her adversary appear older and colder than she was.- She was attractive, yet very dry. Sally stayed behind the crowds and followed her progress into the arrival lounge. She had the urge to approach the woman; to console her and help her into the city, but she knew that was impossible. She felt she could hug her, and share tears for the man they both loved, but it was out of the question. She followed her through the terminal, fascinated with the way she walked, the way she carried her grief or concern. She finally decided that she wasn't just hiding it well, she wasn't carrying any at all. Sally turned and left.

In the next ten days Jack dangled from his tubes, and swam through the thick, cloying drugs. He was in constant pain.The move to the heart center had gone very well. tie nau oeen briefed on his need for a transplant, and the fact that in order to make it all work, he had to fight to live; fight to keep the new heart from rejecting; fight for the love of his life. Sally had gone to the hospital several times, just to be near where he was. She had no hope of seeing him, but being on the same street, in the same building lifted her. She sent him flowers with a card using a code name they both used for eachother. She waited, worried and wondered about their future. Her daily routine ceased and she spent much of the time in a deep funk.

On the tenth day. Jack's wife was called to the hospital from her hotel room. A donor had been found. A twenty-six year old Puerto Rican seaman from the Bronx had fallen into a ship's hold in Elizabethport. He had suffered traumatic head injuries, but his heart pumped vainly to sustain the blank mind. His family had pressed for the donation. The heart

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arrived in the heart center this evening, was being prepped, and the transplant would take place the nex.t morning.

That same night, Jack was given lessons by a nurse on coughing and breathing. Nothing that has been said or written can fully prepare the transplantee for the few days following the operation. He knew he was going to have this new heart. He knew he needed it, but at the same time it was all like a play to him; a play where he was in the front row, but not yet on stage. As the nurse shaved him from chin to pubis, he was suddenly aware that they were putting the makeup on him, and he was spectator no more. In this participatory theater of pain, he was cast as a leading player. He was given a sleeping aid. If softened the dull agony he had been living with, and he felt calm about the frontal assault that was to take place on his body tomorrow. Just before he drifted off. he was brutally invaded with massive injections of ATG in each buttock, followed by a toot of antibiotics. The ATG being the latest attempt to combat the most deadly aspect of any transplant: rejection.

Jack slept dreamlessly. It seemed, however, that the last ten days had been dreamlike. The nightmare of pain had dominated all hours. He had been threaded with tubes and needles, subjected to lights, conversation and rude manipulations day and night. He knew his wife was there, but he really wasn't sure where he was. He knew that Sally was nowhere to be found, and that he couldn't even ask after her. The nurse who awoke him with another needle on the morning of the operation confused him. He called her Sally and touched her arm, but she smiled and stuck him with another horrible blast of ATG nevertheless. More antibiotics, then Atropine, to dry his secretions. The anesthesiologist came in to talk fo him, then yet another injection. He was tired of being a pin cushion, tired, tired...tired.

Jack never knew from that moment on what he felt, what he dreamed, or what he simply imagined was happening to him. He knew that when he was fully supported by the heart-lung

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machine he was technically dead anyway, so he had full license for hallucination. Did he leave his ravaged body and look down into the brightly lit theater as the faceless artisans took their places? As he watched from light years away, he was shocked that the scapel that slit his hairless chest from throat to navel drew no blood. It had been electrically charged to immediatlely cauterize the horrid slash. He was glad to note that the surgeon's hand was steady and precise as he cut through layer after layer. He didn't really see it, or feel it, yet he experienced it. He was ther, after all. He knew he didn't like the saw that ripped his sternum into smoking chips of bone, but he was puzzled that he couldn't hear it. He dreaded that noise, but it never reached his drugged ears. He was amused that they coated the raw edges of this new cleavage with beeswax to protect the traumatized edges. He was terribly thirsty. He wanted to ask for a drink as the retractor was set into this absurd gap in his chest, but no one would hear him anyway. He cried as the gleaming machine screw cranked his severed breastbone apart the eight inches necessary to expose his heart cavity. Of course there were no tears, but this was really rape. This awful penetration had finally peeled away his god-given shield and he was being violated in an inconceivable manner by these rubbery hands and icy steels.

He was cold, dead cold. The hands moved quickly with the scapel once more, then all activity in the theater stopped as his heart lay suddenly exposed to the men and women of the surgical team. The wonder of this mystical organ never ceased to amaze the most veteran of these experts, and even Jack's diseased and damaged heart demanded awe as it beat weakly in the crimson cavity. Jack was shocked at the golden-mauve color. He could not imagine that color had ever existed before his eyes, had never leaped from any artist's palette. He decided he didn't want to look anymore, but he wasn't seeing with his eyes and didn't know how to close them any tighter than they were. It is not clear if he saw the

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surgeons place the pair of cannulae, to circulate the blood into the machine, or sever the arteries that connected him with life. For now he was dead. There was no more lub-dub, lub-dub beating in his temple, but a horrifying clickswishing sound, similiarto a dishwasher as the heart-lung machine pumped, oxygenated, purified and cooled his life blood.

He had never been colder. The machine cooled his blood to lower his organ's demands for oxygen. He screamed in thirst, but was too cold, too dead to shiver. The strong young heart that had been in limbo was placed into his freezing chest. The rubbery hands fussed and sutured, snipped and slithered around this alien organ. The machine whirred and washed. The eyes that darted to cathode ray tubes showed intense concentration and knowledge as they silently communicated with each other. His blank eyes watched their eyes and marvelled at the knowledge and precision that was mirrored within. His deaf ears listened to the rare phrases that were spoken... the loudest sound of all was the uncommon light that drenched the room. His new heart was in place. His new heart. He hadn't recognized it as such, yet, for it hadn't taken up its awesome responsibilities. He was still tied to the machine as, for the first time, tension showed in the eyes and mannerisms of the surgeon. All the routine mechanics had been performed, now it was time to start the new heart. The iced-down golden pump lashed lifeless in his chest now had to respond to the starting stimulae, and pulse to life. Jack didn't realize how much he had missed the innocuous tub-dub, lub-dub, but there it was. The heart had started. The surgical team lightened magically, and the technical patios was sprinkled with comments about the bull market, and of the Hospital's new advertising campaign. The patient was alive, and this superbly crafted operation was on auto-pilot as the tiny threads pulled him back together. From one of the myriad tubes flowed a subtle suggestion of warmth, and as he warmed, Jack knew life was possible once

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again. He was no longer dead, and as he moved into another plane of unconsciousness, he wondered if his Spanish would improve.

The next four days of constant monitoring, of light and noise, were just as hallucinogenic to him. His wife would tell him later of strange conversation he attempted, of dreams he spoke. He was no longer in pain, or at least his pain was of a less frightening variety. He hated the tubes that bristled from him and chafed his throat. He was an extremely uncomfortable human being yet having experienced death, he nurtured a secret joy in all this discomfort. He was going to make it. He felt like he had been dropped from a great height, and the pain he now felt at least let him know he was very much alive.

On the fifth day he was moved to intensive care, and reality inched its way into his system. He talked to his wife. He had something that resembled food, and some of the tubes were removed. He had a phone call from his firm in London wishing him well. He talked to the cardiologist who was enthusiastic about his progress. His body was bruised and tender everywhere, they had stuck every vein, abused each orofice. The elation at finding himself alive gave way to deep depression. He longed to be normal again. He longed to see Sally.

It was the second week of his recovery. His wife had flown back to London for a few days to rest, then take care of their affairs. They were going to have to find an apartment near New York for the next six months as Jack's condition was monitored. One of his favorite nurses had just finished rubbing his skin when Sally came into the room. She had walked to the hosptial and her skin was gorgeous. Her hair was a little longer than he remembered, but everything else was simply incredible. She set the flowers that she was carrying down and approached his bed. Her love for him could not have been more obvious. It had been torture for her to try and follow his condition but now she could see for her

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own bright eyes that he was indeed alive, and on his way to being healthy.

"Hi, Skinny. Oh, Jack..." she faltered. "I had to come and see you, to tell you how much I've missed you and how much I love you." She sat on the edge of the bed with her head on his cheek and cried quietly. He became disoriented and couldn't speak. She was finally here. She had never looked better. Her coat opened as her softness pressed against him and her perfume teased his memory.

"Sally." As her hand pressed his, her tears of relief and happiness

fell quietly between them, mingled suddenly with his. His eyes had filled with horror at the realization that the heart that danced with madness at the sight of her, the heart that flushed him with the heat as they touched, the heart that had beat wildly after their lovemaking had been wrenched from his chest and discarded by those rubbery hands. The new one simply beat steadily, coldly under the horrible scar...lubdub, lub-dub.

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1942

B.Z. Niditch

for Czeslaw Milosz

A voice cannot explain the strange con versa tion between trains by the footsteps of the poet tha t breaks, if you listen, in resting places of twilight.

Were there but words of occupation on this muted hour now explodes which blinds the wind in convulsions in entering the hea vy sighs of deportation and death.

And you, Czeslaw, amid untaught sadness hum a childhood hymn by entering history unprepared for this diary half*ghostIy written in the italics of the departed.

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William Nunez

LOSING MY•••

What has tears brought? But pain and misery The pool that reflects in your eyes are gone And I am in a corner alone

Contented in this world My legs are too big to fit in a box Carrying forwards towards you Forever, our worlds are one

Endless hours in a train that never stops Tides was and rust the steel And then we fall But not rise again

Yes, you're gone and I write An observer from a three*dimensional plane Reflections that conceal happiness Revelations that show wrath

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Tony Pena

BOILING BLOOD

She smokes a cigarette and burns a hole in her wedding dress while sitting underneath a spider's web on a rocking chair that creaks like her lover's knees on her best friends bed. She closes her eyes and dreams of igniting a spark in the darkness of the barrel of her father's gun.

GOODBYE KISS

Lips draining nightshade into a shot glass of a gangster's fractured eye.

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David A. Paulk

THE BIG GAME

Leaders disagree, nations build weapons, Americans sing anthems, and Russians goosestep smartly. We cheer for the Mets and Sox. They shoot men in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile,

Death warms up in the bullpen, should either starter falter.

Sitting in the park, I watch the pigeons contemplate world affairs. Are they wiser than we? They only hold summits when they eat together, and talk about the weather.

Meanwhile,

Death kicks into a net, in case he has to come in and win one for the Gipper, or Lenin.

And more die, in Afghanistan. Angola, Lebanon, South Africa, Nicaragua, Ireland. Men, women and children, especially the children, die in hundreds, thousands each day.

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Paulk

Meanwhile,

Death gets a bat and goes to the on-deck circle; ready to pinch hit for humankind, going for the game-winner.

Who's gonna pitch against him and save the series?

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Cary/on Ann Poole

CHILDHOOD IN CHICAGO

Short! I was always short, shorter than anyone else. And frequently laughing hitting my thigh with joy. My brown curly head dancing up and down with glee and writing a play or two influenced my shows. Junking glass bottles and papers for eleven cents. The cost at Banner or Wicker Park movies.

Mama, Shirley and I going to the movies. Tommy, I loved Tommy--only--yes, no one else. Green river sodas more, coffee only five cents. Tommy liked Gloria. He told me, than no joy. And me a little girl wondering if it shows. No tears after all, just laughing but not with glee.

Crisp, crackling under foot--winter--chortling with glee. Sledding, ice skating, only Saturday movies. The Green Archer serial matinee at shows. Victor Jory fighting six men, him, no one else. It was serious; no one laughed, but there was joy. Still half price for me please only eleven cents.

She forgot. Sunday school today, twenty five cents. God has a sense of humor, me, laughing with glee. Little girl believing--heaven real--only joy. Jeffry Lynn, tall and handsome, playing God in movies. Head up, pencil stilled, foot straightened, me! No one else! Me wanting to witness, wondering if it shows.

Cheating, never thinking it was a sin, at shows. No higher than a great dane with eleven cents. Rain piercing, lasting, no one knew, no one else. No tears just hurt no giggling, no smiling, no glee. Shirley Temple never shown that way in movies. God, the healer. Once again smiles with joy.

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Poole

White dress, billowy sleeves, speeches, parchment, June, joy. Walther League, plays, now eligible fourteen--shows. War over! Puckering up like in the movies. What a day! Horns blowing, wieners only five cents. Cars on their tops. People laughing only with glee. Wrote soldier. Here! Under the bed! Me. No one else.

Coffee still five cents. Fourteen still laughing with joy. Still hitting my thigh with glee: Happiness, it shows. Not wanting to be anybody else like in movies.

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S.L. Rich

OPERA FOR A MOONLESS PATH

He sings his songs of love not found, of grief and pain and death-sipping rum between; smiles with lips cracked and sore, then sings of joy and bliss; when tiring of the melody of all he's lived and lost staggers to the furthest alley.

Barefoot and forty, she walks a backwoods road; embracing fear-filled darkness, divorcing a lonely day. With feet caressing still-warm sand she summons ghosts from childhood to stroll with her tonight and share what might have been.

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Jeff Swan

DOUBLE VISION

I can remember myself kissing the waters of my pleasant memories and choking on the waves of my past disdains.

TANKA

The kiss of your lips, like the sweetest grapes flowing on my wanting tongue. The purest of the vine-yard, yet plucked away for wine.

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James H. Seward

THE ANNIVERSARY

A year ago tonight you came, Carrying laughter in your arms, Convivial in my charms, And when my hospitality presumed, Your hand moved with a natural motion To the glass wherein I poured the unlearned lore Of innocence and joy That turned my soul into the purest wine, And as became a guest you drank And more than once your hand extended.

But now, on the anniversary Of our conviviality, I remain alone and cringing Before the uncertainty That howls around the silence of my house, Wondering if I have neglected to Remember some little thing, Some broken fragment of a moment, When perchance my presence flowed Unnoticed through the glass.

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W Gregory Stewart

WAKE UP

wake up wake up NOW it's all (you wake up hearing) going to be all ok. what?

it's going to be ok we've cleaned you out

but WHY? and what (again) we've flushed you cleaned you up and reamed you drained you out and hosed you down

so wake up NOW butwhybutwhybutwhybutwhybutwhy

actually we're not allowed to say we cannot

will not do not tell you this...

but you ARE ok

(the litany) it's going to be ok....

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Stewart

TIME FOR POETRY

time for poetry? not me! right now I have to realize a dream

(it's mine and all-american and do the nine-to-five; i have no...

time for poetry? not now, but thanks. a little later on, perhaps

a place i know, and dim, where we might talk? but otherwise, and now, i haven't any...

time for poetry? not here, for heaven's sake! are you insane?

we've got tape and camera rolling, this is live, and we will cut this moment from the outside in - this is no...

time for poetry.

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Nick R. Zemaiduk

ALCHEMY

Near the reservation to attract a stream of tourists, stands display hand-crafted turquoise, sell beneath the counter potions gods have handed down. For centuries they've mad concessions, now support their habits turning hitiching posts to parking meters, shit to gold.

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Zemaiduk

CABIN FEVER

When the moon rains down silver, The wind from the wood Gathers voice fron the night And the whippoorwill's song Floats uneasy, I pace Through the cabin alone In the darkness and measure My feelings. The long Cries come out of the wood, I grow restless, the sound Of the wolves calling out To a deaf August moon Stirring passion I almost recall So profound In it's utter simplicity, Feeling of doom

It rolls wavelike, a murmur, A thousand soft drums Down the hillside, the cabin And I just a shore On an ocean of night Gaining strength as it comes Ever closer, I feel it Like thunder, a roar Of the past that envelops All fear, shakes the dark With the dim recognition Of times I'd commune On the hills in gray twilight Where man left no mark And I ran free with wolves Under just such a moon.

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CONTRIBUTORS

Frank Ananicz has been published in fifty literary magazines. Amoung them are, North South Trader. Woman Talk, Prop, Senior Scribes, and Today's Christian Parent.

Father Benedict Auer is a monk of Marimon Abbey in Aurora Illinois. He is chairman of the English Department in their college preparatory high school, and has been accepted by ninety different magazines.

Charles Bigelow lives is West Milford, New Jersey. He has appeared in December, 1986 'Wolf' issue of Aldebaran.

David Blaisdell was published in the Aldebaran last April. He resides in Glenview, Illinois.

Lorene Vorback Bossong lives in Hicksville, New York.

Annette Bostrom has had her fiction appear in Pacific Review. The San Diego Little Literary Magazine, and Ripples Poetry alld Fiction. She has earned an English degree, and teaches at junior high and high school levels.

Caprice Brown lives in South Court, Natchitoches, LA.

Mary Ann Campbell resides in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania.

Robert Darling lives a stones throwaway in Green Hill, Wakefield.

Robert DeYoung lives in Merrimac, Massachusetts.

Becky Ericson sends her submissions from Colorado Springs.

Karen Gibson lives in Canton, New York.

Fritz Hamilton has published a book of poems from Dog River Review. the first of its pocket poet series.

Phillip Hemenway has two short stories in this issue. This is the first time that's ever been done in Aldebaran.

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Mary Ann Henn lives in Sf. Benedicts Convent in Minnesota.

E Ward Herlands has had several publications including, Northeast Journal, Phoebus, and Gryphon. He is presently working with The Center For Independent Study, Yale Station on a book of new poetry.

N.M. Hoffman lives in the Washington Square Village, New York.

Joan Payne Kincaid has been a faithful contributor and friend of Aldebaran. We appreciate her support.

Murray Lerner sends his submission from Houston, Texas.

Thomas McCraw lives in Columbia South Carolina and goes under the nickname 'Dusty'.

D.S. Moir

B.Z. Niditch has been published in The Poetry Review and Writer's Forum.

Tony Pena sends his submissions from Mohegan Lake, New York.

William Nunez is studying at New York University.

David A. Paulk sends his poetry from Concord, NH.

Carolyn Ann Poole resides in Los Angeles, California.

S.L. Rich sends his poem from Kirbyville, Texas.

Jeff Swan resides in Vaughn, Washington.

James H. Seward sends his submission from Meadville, Pa,

W. Gregory Stewart sends his poem from Los Angeles, Ca.

Nick R. Zemaiduk resides in Hillsdale, ML

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Documents

Aldebaran Vol. 17, Issue 1 - Roger Williams University